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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29222232">A Child in the Summer (Millgirl Mirandy Story 18)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millgirl/pseuds/Millgirl'>Millgirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Making babies [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Devil Wears Prada (2006)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Childhood, F/F, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Past Relationship(s), Pregnancy, family life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:48:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>49,215</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29222232</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millgirl/pseuds/Millgirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Miranda and Andrea discover things about Miranda's past which make them want to expand their family, and are led into a new phase of their marriage. That's all I know for now, folks!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Caroline Priestly &amp; Cassidy Priestly &amp; Andrea Sachs, Miranda Priestly/Andrea Sachs, Nigel Kipling/Miranda Priestly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Making babies [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947709</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>211</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As always, I do not own, or have any rights in the main characters. I am grateful simply to take them into my AU where they live on in my imagination. Like the seventeen or so stories before this, it follows on consecutively from its predecessor, in this case, "A Child in the Spring".  Of course, I treasure every kudos, and especially appreciate readers' comments to which I will respond whenever possible.<br/>I don't know how long this tale will be, but let's find out together! Thanks for reading, lovely people.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chapter 1.   Old Stories.</p><p>Old stories, like worn-out shoes, have a distinct smell about them. They slide us back into books we have forgotten we ever read, churning up memories we never knew we kept. Miranda was reading a story, just like that, one Sunday morning, as she enjoyed a quiet hour with a coffee in the kitchen of her unusually quiet New York town-house. The sun flooded through the open French windows, and Pumpkin, her large, long-furred ginger cat sat firmly on her knee and kept pushing the paper away from her with his head. </p><p>“Stop it, Pumps! I want to read this. Behave!” </p><p>The article which interested her was in the new book review section of the Sunday Times, an account of a memoir written by some deceased elderly violinist. The review briefly mentioned his life, a childhood in Vienna, then as a survivor from Auschwitz, an adaptation to life in England as a music teacher, marriage and several children, a devoted wife, and a new future he’d forged from the ashes of his previous one. It looked an interesting story, but not so unusual. But the reviewer waxed lyrical about it, and praised the quality of the writing.</p><p>The autobiography was entitled, “The Lost Child,” and Miranda presumed this referred to the writer’s own lost youth in Nazi Germany, but something in the review spoke to her. She decided she wanted to read the original book, and reached for a pen to scribble down the author’s details. Then, with a strange frisson which ran from her fingers right back up to her brain, she realised she was writing down a name she knew almost as intimately as her own. </p><p>	“My God!” she exclaimed. Could it be? Was it possible? Was this the story that she had refused to explore her whole life, now being offered to her in the shape of a shiny new hardback on the Sunday Times best sellers list?</p><p>	Miranda felt her heart begin to beat fast in her chest. No, it wouldn’t be him. The coincidence was just that. There must be dozens of people of that name across the world. But then, how many were German Jewish refugees teaching music in South London just after the Second World War? She desperately wanted to get hold of the book, to read for herself, to find out, just in case. </p><p>But the reviewer said the book wouldn’t be published until the end of the month. And despite her earlier magical abilities to conjure up unpublished manuscripts, Miranda guessed even Andrea couldn’t get hold of it for her before then. She would just have to be patient, and patience was a virtue Miranda possessed only in microscopic amounts.</p><p>So, if she couldn’t read more, she needed at least to share her fears and misgivings about it at once to the love of her life. She needed the exasperatingly cheerful, positive and altogether lovely person who miraculously still deigned to share her bed and curate her heart. Miranda pushed Pumpkin off her knee, stood up, and reached for her phone.</p><p> </p><p>It was indeed a beautiful morning in early summer, and Andy, the twins, and Amelia, who insisted on pushing her stroller instead of sitting in it, were enjoying the sunshine and the open green spaces in one of their favorite parks. Their Sunday morning project was ostensibly to take Tilly their little Bichon Frieze dog for a walk, but as she scampered ahead, the four of them simply liked to stroll together. They were heading towards a playground area where Amelia could practice her skills on a climbing frame, and Andy and her step-daughters could maybe buy some waffles and indulge in a carb-fest away from Miranda’s eagle eye.</p><p>  Normally Miranda’s will prevailed on such matters, but it was three days before the twins’ fifteenth birthday, and Andy had a yearning to spoil them a little, to enjoy a family time together, before they grew up entirely and stopped wanting to do anything so simple and un-cool as hang out with their step-mom. So she ordered the waffles and ice-cream floats at the kiosk and they sat down at one of the picnic benches nearby to wait for them to be made.</p><p>Amelia’s bright gold curls easily identified her as the twins’ little sister, but she was very much her own person, and had already run off in her shorts and sandals to tackle the toddler climbing frame. “Sit there, Mama, and watch me. I’m going to be a monkey,” she said.</p><p>“She is too,” gasped Caroline, watching in alarm as Amelia headed skywards. “I can’t stand this. I’m going to go and stand by her, just in case she falls.”</p><p>Caroline was always Amelia’s slave, and Andy and Cass let her go. It wasn’t that they were careless of Amelia, but they knew three people supervising her would make the child cross. And one thing with Amelia, if you could avoid it, you didn’t want to make her cross. </p><p>She could be an angelic, happy little soul most of the time, but just now and then she would snap and exhibit all the signs of a small volcano blowing its top. When that happened, the only person who could deal with her was her Mommy, Miranda, who was the Major-General of their family, and whose quiet voice usually crushed any uprising in one or two short sentences.</p><p>“It’s great to be out of school,” sighed Cassidy, “but I have so much extra work to do before Space Camp. Will you work through the papers with me, so I’m prepared before I go? With kids coming from all over the country, I don’t want to stand out as the dumbo of the camp.”</p><p>“Of course, honey. But if you stand out it will be as the most brilliant student space-cadet they’ve ever seen. Simply by being accepted proves you are in the top one percent in the country.”</p><p>“Well I don’t think so.”</p><p>Andy was so happy to see that Cassidy carried her brilliance at mathematics and physics so modestly. Cass then asked, “When will Mom want us back home?”</p><p>“She said she’d call. We are all supposed to be going out to lunch later, so maybe it would be wise not to let on to her about this waffle festival.”</p><p>Cassidy looked at Andy with a warmth that was as toasty as the morning sun. “I do love you, Andy-Mom, you know that, right?”</p><p>“Yeah, and I love you too, sweetums.”</p><p>Then three things happened. Amelia reached the top of the frame and waved triumphantly at them all. The man from the waffle stall brought over their order, and Andy’s phone exploded with a ring-tone which told her Miranda was calling her.</p><p>She pressed the call-back button and smiled into the phone.</p><p>“Hi, babe.”</p><p>Then followed a long, almost stream of consciousness style, outpouring from Miranda.</p><p>“OK, hold on...You what?...Oh!...Of course….Maybe thirty minutes?...OK. We’ll wait for you here… Bye.”</p><p>“That was your Mom”, she said unnecessarily, as Caroline and Amelia joined them on the bench and demanded their share of the waffles. “She’s joining us here, said she needed some fresh air and so she will walk through the park to find us.”</p><p>But what Andy hadn’t revealed to the girls, was what Miranda had been so excited and churned up about.  This was that she believed she’d just seen a picture of a man in the Sunday Times book section, a man who might well be her father, and she couldn’t wait to talk to her about it.</p><p>In thirty minutes on the dot, Miranda arrived, looking as gorgeous as ever, in her summer sports gear and high-end trainers. Andy’s thoughts immediately went off the straight and narrow, telling her she should molest her wife there and then and roll about with her on the grass. But sadly, at twenty-eight, she was getting too grown-up for such activities, if not for the fantasies, and the rolling about would have to wait. The respectable people of New York’s Upper East Side could enjoy their Sunday leisure without having their sensibilities affronted.</p><p>Evidence of the ice-cream floats and the waffle-eating lay all over the table. Miranda put her hands on her hips and tried to look disapproving. But when she saw Amelia’s round face totally covered in chocolate sauce, she burst into laughter. </p><p>Andrea laughed too, and pulled out a baby-wipe from her shoulder bag and cleaned up her youngest’s mouth and cheeks. “I know. We were all bad, so bad. But it’s June, and I’m out with all my favorite people. We just felt in need of a few waffles.”</p><p>“I’m a little monkey, Mommy,” said Amelia, fighting the wipe, like every child would. “D’you want to see me climb up the tower again?”</p><p>“Oh very well. Just once. While Mama and I stand beside the frame, OK?”</p><p>While Amelia did another impression of Sherpa Tensing, Andy said quietly to Miranda, “So do tell. You think you’ve seen your father? But you have never, ever talked to me about him. Not even when we were first together and you told me the stories about your mother. So what’s this about?”</p><p>Miranda glanced behind her to the twins, who were having a banter about something or nothing back at the table. “I feel calmer now. The walk across the park settled me down. I’ll show you the article when we get home, and maybe tonight in bed, you can relax me enough to let me tell you what little else I know. It’s an old story though, and I’m not sure I really want to go there…”</p><p>Andy hugged her and pushed an errant curl away from her ear. “Relax you? When did you and I ever go to bed to relax?”  </p><p>Then she looked upwards and squealed, “No, Melie! Use both hands! You’re only two!” And they were both distracted by the terror which all parents of toddlers feel, whether twenty-eight, or fifty-five, at the sight of their child balancing on one leg eight feet up in the air.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The famous Andrea Sachs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Andrea goes in search of yet another unpublished book.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Andy and Miranda walked home through the park, swinging Amelia between them as she held both their hands and jumped and skipped about like a jack-rabbit. The twins had taken Tilly in the other direction, to extend her walk and at fifteen they were old enough for Miranda to squash down her anxiety. She supposed it might be safe enough to let them wander the streets of upper Manhattan on a Sunday afternoon without constant surveillance. </p><p>Andrea pushed the stroller along with her free hand and realised it had not been worth bringing it if Melie never wanted to sit in it. She was such an independent little poppet. She felt the warm chubbiness of her little girl’s fingers link her to the wife she adored, and enjoyed the physical connection. This was a child they had conceived in their minds together, nurtured in Andy’s body, and cherished from the day she was born.</p><p> Bunny, Melie’s biological father, had kept his word and his distance, always acknowledging her, but never imposing any emotional demands. His name on her birth certificate was the only legal proof needed to say that she was physically related to Miranda. To Andrea it wasn’t even necessary though. </p><p>Amelia’s immense vitality and fearless approach to life told the world she was a daughter of Miranda Priestly, just as much as the child of Andrea Sachs.  From where she inherited her stubbornness and at times, extreme naughtiness though, had to remain a mystery! Neither of them cared to own it as coming from her.</p><p>As they walked, Miranda said, “I need you to read the book review in the Sunday Times and tell me what I should do.” </p><p>“You mean?”</p><p>“If it is him…my father… then he’s been out there in plain sight all these years! Why have I never gone in search for him before? What was stopping me?”</p><p>“You, quite rightly, blamed him for abandoning your mother when she was not much older than the twins are now. I would say that was reason enough.”</p><p>“But when I returned to visit my grandmother when I was sixteen, she actually mentioned some Jewish people had come looking for me. Why didn’t I seize the opportunity and look for him then? I don’t understand.”</p><p>“Darling. You were sixteen, also barely older than the twins. You were just rebuilding your life after an appalling series of events. I would imagine looking for a father who would be a complete stranger was something no young person in those circumstances could do. You didn’t even have a name.”</p><p>“Oh yes, I did. I always knew it. Don’t ask me how I knew. But it was a name my mother must have told me when I was tiny.”</p><p>“Well we’re home now. Show me the newspaper and let me see the article!”</p><p>Andrea read the review, and scrutinised the picture.  She immediately felt a similar prickling of the palms as Miranda had experienced, and decided to do something about it. She looked up the reviewer’s email contact at the foot of the article and sent him a message, including her cell phone number.</p><p>Miranda had been wrong to assume they couldn’t get hold of a copy of the book before publication. Andrea knew the system and reverted to her best ‘ Miranda Priestly’s assistant’ persona to get hold of it. </p><p>Her email was replied to almost immediately, and it turned out the reviewer was based in New York, not twenty blocks from their town house. Sheldon Murphy wasn’t a name she recognised, but there was no time to look him up. She rang the number he gave and was surprised when a female voice answered, the sort of Connecticut upper class voice associated with someone raised in the higher echelons of intellectual New York society, and, of course, money. </p><p>“Do you still have a copy of the book, ‘The Lost Child’? If so, would it be possible to borrow it for a few days?”</p><p>Andrea had introduced herself, and complimented this Sheldon Murphy person for an excellent review, before begging the favour. Whether it was because it was a quiet, boring Sunday afternoon, or Sheldon Murphy was a naturally easy-going person who didn’t mind strangers intruding on her life, Andy was told, “Well, I don ‘t see a problem with that. Come here at four and I’ll give you the review copy.”</p><p>“Just nipping out for an hour,” Andy called breezily from the hallway just before she left, knowing Miranda was two floors above, involved with Amelia’s sudden desire to change out of her shorts into a “Princess” costume. It tickled her no end to see if she could magically produce the book Miranda expected to wait two weeks to read. It would be a delicious surprise.</p><p>Andrea took the Porsche and dropped the hood to enjoy the bright sunshine and the sense of freedom which the open-top gave her. With a small child to convey back and forth, as well as two teenagers rapidly approaching the age when they would want to drive, and already starting driver-ed in school, it was a car they could rarely use. The Lexus had recently been exchanged for a Suburu, which Miranda considered one of the safest family vehicles for road trips, as well as negotiating the crowded streets of New York. But dear faithful Roy still did most of their driving, as a family, as well as transporting Miranda to and from her many appointments. Cara, the nanny, tended to use the Suburu as a family bus.</p><p>The reviewer’s address was in an apartment, high up in a tower block in a newly gentrified area close to the water. Andy parked the Porsche in the very limited residents’ space and rang the bell. She also grinned up at the security camera above the entrance and was rewarded with a buzzer showing the door was unlocked and she could enter. She saw the nameplates and pressed the elevator call button. Sheldon lived way upstairs on the fourteenth floor. </p><p>When she arrived on the floor, Andy was faced with four separate apartments, but the one at the end had its door open already and a tall, slim woman emerged. She looked like a writer, if there was a “look”, tousled curls over a large pair of statement glasses, and an old sweatshirt and pants ensemble above bare feet. She looked in her early to mid sixties, weathered and elegant in a shabby chic sort of way.</p><p>“Hi, Come right in. I’m Sheldon. And you’re the famous Andrea Sachs!”</p><p>“Am I?” Andy was suddenly shy. How had the woman grasped her name so firmly, and why did she call her famous? She’d barely mentioned it to her on the phone. She continued speaking as she followed Sheldon into what was obviously a study and living room combined.</p><p>“I’m sorry to break in on your Sunday afternoon. It’s just that my wife was very intrigued by your review, and we would very much like to know more. There may possibly be a family connection with its author.”</p><p>“You mean Miranda Priestly? You two are married, aren’t you? Everyone knows about Miranda and her beautiful young wife.”</p><p>“Well, yes.”</p><p>Andy shrugged, even as she blushed at the compliment. She had accepted long since that there was no such thing as privacy anymore in a world dominated by social media. And there had been that infamous spread on Runway about the wedding pictures, with Miranda in a tailcoat and full steam-punk regalia. But she often forgot how famous they were.</p><p>“Well, I’m pleased to help. Here’s the book in question.”</p><p>Sheldon held out a hardback book, which looked shop perfect, with its dust cover intact. </p><p>“It’s done well when it was published in London, and in a German translation a couple of months ago. I was sent it by the US publishers who are pushing hard on it before its launch over here.”</p><p>“Is the author still alive?”</p><p>“No. He died at the very end of last year. But his son is apparently coming from London to promote it round all the chat shows as soon as it’s released.”</p><p>“I read your review. You said it was a book of revelations, and also mystery. What did you mean?”</p><p>“It has a huge sadness at its heart. Many Jewish autobiographies do, of course, but this is more personal, more enigmatic. It’s a very psychological book. You’ll see when you read it.”</p><p>“Well thank you, very much. I’ll return it as soon as possible.”</p><p>“Don’t worry about that. As you can observe, I have more books here than I know what to do with.”</p><p>Sheldon waved an arm round the piles of books on every table.</p><p>“Do you write a lot of reviews?”</p><p> “Yes. It provides money for cigarettes, and means I read a selection of the latest offerings. There are of course far too many books in the world. But we keep producing more, don’t we?” She grinned ruefully.</p><p>“Yes, we do. At least, I’m as guilty as anyone. I’m trying to get established as a writer,” confessed Andy.</p><p>“Of course you are. I thought your novel, “The Blender”, was quite remarkable . That’s why I especially wanted to meet you. I think it should be far more widely promoted. I would put it up for a prize.”</p><p>Andy blushed even more. Her books were like babies, and she produced them with just as much care, pain and after long hours of labour. But she wouldn’t write to a genre and refused to let Miranda push them up the charts, which she wanted to do, and could have done so easily.  She had written the first novel, simply as a wedding present for Miranda, and there was only one copy in existence. Then the second, “Blinkers”, had emerged while she was expecting Amelia, and the third, ‘The Blender’, she’d given to a small women run publisher, based not even in New York, but up on Cape Cod.  They had such a small budget and mailing list, Miranda had accused Andy of not wanting anyone to discover she wrote at all. </p><p>She was right, as always, and Andy admitted it. But she somehow wanted to protect her fiction from too much public gaze. Her articles for Vanity Fair and other monthly magazines on the other hand delighted her when they were accepted by the top-selling periodicals, and she didn’t mind Miranda boasting about them, and passing round copies at work. </p><p>But this person, Sheldon Murphy, was the only stranger she’d ever met to praise her novel to her face. It was like someone looking into the pram and genuinely admiring one’s infant daughter.</p><p>Andrea suddenly had a moment of realisation. </p><p>“Sheldon, should I recognise your name? I’m so sorry I don’t. Do you write yourself?”</p><p>“Come and have some iced tea,” said her new acquaintance. And then she led Andy over past a bookshelf with dozens and dozens of  novels stacked against each other, all with the same name.  “Stella Hudspeth.” </p><p>“There they are, up there, my little workhorses, which keep me in caffeine and vodka. ”</p><p>Andy’s eyes opened wide. Stella Hudspeth was a household name across the world, for producing psychological thrillers. They were always in the best seller charts, and several had been made into successful films. One line in her list of works was running globally as a TV series across several continents. Andy had stumbled into the apartment of one of the top ten earners in American contemporary fiction writing. </p><p>“So, is Sheldon your real name, or one you only use for reviews?”</p><p>“It was my father’s name. And Murphy, that simply went well with it. I have good Irish connections.”<br/>
"And what about Stella Hudspeth."<br/>
"Another pen-name." </p><p>She pulled a jug of chilled iced tea from the refrigerator and poured the contents into a couple of glasses over ice. Andy watched her, absorbed by her easy charm, and accepted the glass when it was handed to her. She didn’t know how to respond, but she knew that this person, whatever her real name, was both fascinating, and also a tiny bit dangerous. There was an intensity about her somehow. And she lived and breathed books, which in itself was intoxicating.  </p><p>Andy sipped the iced tea.  “I shouldn’t stay too long. Miranda doesn’t even know I’m up here.”</p><p>“Well, if you're so concerned, call her and tell her you’ll be later than you intended. You’re not her prisoner, surely. Stay for at least an hour or so. I want to hear much more about your own writing, especially ‘Blended.’ I’m going to review it for the New Yorker this very week, so an interview with the author will be a very appropriate extra. Come over here and sit down, Andrea Sachs.”</p><p> Andy pulled out her phone to message Miranda. She knew how much she would worry if she couldn't locate her, even for an hour or two. </p><p>Then she went and sat down.  She was very curious. If the woman opposite her wasn't Sheldon Murphy, or Stella Hudspeth, then who was she? It was worth staying, just to find out.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Feeling it in the bones</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Miranda opens the book. Andrea opens her mind to the idea of another child.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Where have you been all this time? I was getting worried.”</p><p>Andrea heard the controlled panic in Miranda’s voice, unsuccessfully hidden by the fact that she turned away towards the kitchen window as she said it. When Miranda didn’t look at you, you knew it was because she was more frightened than simply haughty. Even as a lowly assistant Andy had cottoned on to that piece of body language. </p><p>Their lunch plans had been earlier deferred to a new plan of taking the family out for dinner, and now, judging by the smells coming from the top of the stove, it looked as though Miranda had changed that idea as well. She was cooking some sort of stir-fry. Miranda always cooked stir fries when she was ‘in a state’. Dicing the vegetables within an inch of their lives was one of her go-to displacement activities in times of stress.</p><p>“Hey, darling. I’m sorry, but I’ve been out on an errand. Look what I’ve brought home for you. I didn’t tell you earlier exactly what I was doing because I wanted it to be a surprise.”</p><p>Andy placed the book which Sheldon Murphy had lent her on the counter, and went behind Miranda’s back, placing both arms round her waist and leaning her chin on Miranda’s slim shoulder. She felt her far too sensitive wife audibly sigh with relief and give a little shiver from the touch. Andy felt once again the weight of her responsibility for Miranda’s happiness, and realised it was her most important burden in this world, one she accepted, and would die rather than discard.</p><p>Then she turned her beloved back around towards her, and indicated the book behind them. </p><p>“Look!”</p><p>Miranda looked, then wiped her hands on a tea towel, and picked it up, her face full of wonder and pleasure.</p><p>“You didn’t! How did you?”</p><p>“I can do anything, remember?”</p><p>“Oh, my love!” </p><p>Miranda’s eyes were like purple violets in the early evening light.<br/>
“In awe?”</p><p>“Totally. Would you like to come and work for me?”</p><p>Andrea laughed out loud, and said, “Take the book into the study and start to read it. I’ll finish dinner here. Is Amelia upstairs with the girls?”</p><p>“Yes, they have her in the tub. We’re all determined to show Cara we can manage without her for at least one day a week. But she’ll want to stay up to have dinner with us. These light summer evenings are playing havoc with her bedtime routine.”</p><p>Andy nodded. “Maybe that’s why she’s been so naughty lately. I would hate to think my daughter is turning into a little monster for no reason.”</p><p>Miranda had the book clutched to her chest, obviously desperate to read it. But she took the time to reassure Andy. </p><p>“Don’t worry. She’s two. She’s testing her boundaries, and they have the energy of an Olympian at that age. Maybe it’s time we sent her off to a day nursery or outside playgroup to learn to socialise beyond the family and run off some exhuberance.”</p><p>“You mean, like Hannah has done with Johnny?”</p><p>“Yes. I know Cara played merry hell over it. But it was the right time your sister moved him on from just coming here every day. He has enjoyed the new day-care since Easter, hasn’t he? And it means he no longer spends twelve hours a day just in a household full of women.”</p><p>“But Amelia misses him dreadfully. You know, honey, I think that’s probably why she’s been playing up recently, well part of the reason anyway.”</p><p>Miranda turned in the doorway, and now she could see her Andrea back safe and sound in her kitchen, obviously had a rebound of positive energy and friskiness.</p><p>“You know what we should do, don’t you?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Give our daughter her own little brother or sister to play with.”</p><p>Andrea’s face showed her shock at the unexpected suggestion.</p><p>“I….What?”</p><p>She was astounded, but more by the fact that Miranda was willing to put up with another nine months of a complaining cow of a wife, moaning and groaning about nausea and sleeplessness, than by the implications for herself.</p><p>“Think about it, while I go and dip into this book.” And Miranda disappeared through the kitchen door. </p><p>Andrea opened a bag of shrimp to add to the stir fry and pushed some noodles into a pan of boiling water. While she made the final preparations for their family dinner, Miranda’s words bounced around in her brain. </p><p>Of course, it was a very good time to think about another baby. As the youngest of five siblings, she’d always dreamed of a big family of her own, and now her novel was launching, it was time for creativity in other directions. She admired Miranda’s guts. If she could cope with another little person disrupting their lives, then Andrea certainly should as well.</p><p> But then a secret little dark thought also joined the merry band of happy ones flashing around her brain. Miranda’s insecurities were legendary, and the most negative aspect of their relationship. Another pregnancy, another baby, was this simply a way of shoring up what she might be falsely imagining were cracks in their marriage? </p><p>Andrea remembered a random phrase from some feminist analysis of the reasons for large families. “Keep them barefoot and pregnant” came to mind. Well, she did prefer to go barefoot, especially around the house. And Miranda’s wicked delight in bondage games had been a factor in their marriage from the very first day they had kissed.*</p><p>“You’re not her prisoner.”  The words which Sheldon had said to her ear so recently came into her head. It gave her a second or two’s pause for thought. But then she shook it away and went to the hall to summon the troops. </p><p>“Dinner’s in ten minutes!” she called up the stairs, and was answered by various murmurs and calls of agreement from the upper floors. </p><p>The two hours Andy had spent with Sheldon earlier – she never had managed to extract her real name from her – had been intensely intellectually satisfying. Here was a woman who seemed to have a colossal capacity for keeping abreast of all the modern trends in writing and politics, and yet it sat lightly on her, a trait Andy always admired.</p><p> Just talking to her for that short time had driven Andy back to the days when she had been a graduate student at North-western, and had encountered one or two really first-class minds among her professors. You could tell them a mile off. There was something about true scholarship and an un-prejudiced thirst for knowledge which just stood out. And Sheldon possessed that same quality. </p><p>Why the woman wrote thrillers for a living, Andy wasn’t quite sure. She looked more as though she should be the dean of one of the Ivy league colleges. Andy was determined to research her biography online, and maybe download a selection of her writing. The woman inspired and interested her very much. Although she would never, ever reveal it to Miranda, at times Andy craved the stimulation of a well-trained academic mind. </p><p>Miranda, super bright, clever and quick as she was, had never been through college. The only formal classes she had ever taken post eighteen, had been the short courses in modern art during her sabbatical year.** She was largely self-taught, having lost her mainstream schooling at the age of sixteen. As a child raised in care, she’d been thrown out of its protection at that age, and had to earn her own living. That was when she’d joined the circus as a costume mistress and toured Europe making pajamas for elephants.*** </p><p>Miranda was as bright as a button, with the purest natural aesthetic sense of anyone Andrea could imagine. But she wasn’t an academic, nor a natural writer of longer pieces than her editorial letters. Editing and shaping text, designing and matching page layouts was her forte. Andy’s new friend Sheldon, who had asked her to treat her as such, had a different kind of creativity about her. And Andy knew she wanted to meet up with her again.</p><p>	The girls came downstairs and entered the kitchen, both looking slightly damp and exhausted, as if they had had the bath, not their little sister.  Cassie placed Amelia in her highchair at the table as Andrea said,</p><p>“Go and give your Mom a nudge, will you Caro, honey? She’s reading in the study and may have got absorbed.” </p><p>“Sure,” said Caroline, and went to extract her mother from the book.</p><p> </p><p>Four hours later that night, as they lay together in their king-sized bed, Andrea pulled Miranda towards her, and held her chin gently but firmly, so she could look into her eyes and analyse what she saw there.</p><p>“So? We’ve not had time to talk yet, and you’ve had your head buried in that book all evening. What have you discovered? Is it him, your father?”</p><p>“Yes, I think it is him. I feel it in my bones, you know, like I knew there was some connection between my brother Charles and me the first time we met. I can’t really explain it, but it all fits the time-frame.”</p><p>“And how does he come across, as a person? Was he someone you feel you might have been able to relate to?”</p><p>Miranda drew Andy’s head down onto her chest and held her very closely, so their bodies connected from shoulder to ankle. Andy could feel her heart beating through the light summer nightgown she wore, and her own heart rate rose slightly in time with it. The phrase “two hearts beating as one” had always seemed sentimental nonsense before she met Miranda, but now she experienced it on a nightly basis.</p><p>“The book was written by someone trying to express great sadness, guilt and a sense of loss. I expected to be most affected by his account of Auschwitz, where, as a young boy, he saw indescribable horrors, but in fact his story of the 1950s was equally moving. He lays it all out, the arranged marriage to another Jewish girl, the teaching position which brought him into contact with my Mum, who was just a teenage maid, a cleaner at the school. </p><p>“Andy, I’ve been reading how I was conceived, how I came to be. It’s so painful, but so real, such a revelation. He relives it all as though it was yesterday.  I had to stop in the end, only two thirds through the book. I found it too painful to continue. I’ll pick it up again tomorrow.”</p><p>Miranda was not in tears, but she had gone down to a very deep place and was obviously only just now climbing back out of it. Andrea’s intelligence was already pondering how to help her through this new revelation. Could her wounded soul survive yet more knowledge of how she had lost her parents? How would she cope with knowing her father had only died six months before, that they had missed each other after a lifetime apart? Andy hadn’t even broached that side of things with her yet.</p><p>For now, physical therapy and gentle touching seemed the answer rather than words. She wrapped herself round Miranda, kissed her very gently on the cheek and enjoyed rubbing her face against the beautiful perfume floating through her iconic white hair. Sleeping with Miranda was still a privilege she appreciated every night they spent together, and when they were apart, she felt barely alive. </p><p>Just before they both fell asleep, she said quietly and evenly, “Yes.”</p><p>“Yes to what?”</p><p>“Yes. I do think we should have another baby.”</p><p>Miranda’s answer was a squeeze of affirmation. Then she rolled over in the bed, grabbed Andy by the shoulders, and gave her a long, deep and possessive kiss on the mouth.</p><p>“My girl,” she whispered fiercely, as Andy came up for air.</p><p>“My girl!”</p><p>And then she fell asleep against Andy’s breast.</p><p>*Told in “Cuffed”<br/>
**Told in “Miranda’s Enchanted April.”<br/>
*** Told in “The Making of Miranda.”</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Uncomplicated pleasure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Breakfast time in the townhouse and the peanut butter is flying. Cara has a not unexpected melt-down at news she doesn't wish to hear.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Monday morning in the town-house erupted with the usual flurry of activity, even though the twins had no school for the next three months. Even before 7am Cassidy was ploughing through books on astrophysics which were so dense that Andy couldn’t begin to make any sense of them, and Caroline was intently practising the cello. She was preparing for the annual national youth orchestra summer-school. This would be her second year in the orchestra and she was already second in the cello section, remarkable for a fourteen-year-old.</p><p>This meant the twins would both be away over the same two-week period in early July, and Andy was wondering if she could prise Miranda out of Runway to go with her and Amelia up to their beach cottage in Provincetown for the duration. She knew two full weeks together would probably be impossible, but maybe they could have at least a week and two weekends as a short vacation?</p><p> Surely Miranda deserved a break like any other normal human being? But even as she thought about it, Andrea knew the sentence itself was an oxymoron. Miranda would never be 'normal', - she ‘walked in beauty, like the night<br/>
of cloudless climes and starry skies.’  as the poet Byron had put it.  Andy often had doubts her wife was human at all but suspected she was really a representation of the moon goddess simply disguised in female form. </p><p>At that moment though, Andy’s personal goddess  was busy trying to stop Amelia flinging plastic spoonsful of peanut butter all over the kitchen walls. The child was also continually dropping bits of her buttered toast onto the floor beneath her chair, to enjoy watching Tilly eat them up. Between them, they were a lethal combination around the breakfast table. Every time she dropped a square of toast, Amelia roared with laughter and Tilly woofed. They formed quite a double act.</p><p>Cara, who always arrived before seven, saved Miranda’s immaculate work outfit from destruction by grabbing what was left of Amelia’s little plate of toast, and distracted her with a piece of banana, while she listened to Miranda’s instructions and information for the day ahead. </p><p>After a routine discussion about who would be home for what meal, Miranda decided to grasp the nettle, and said, “Cara, can you find out which are the most highly rated nursery establishments within a mile or so of here and draw me up a shortlist? I’ve decided it’s high time for Amelia to go into day-care for a couple of sessions a week, at least.  It’s important she socialises with other children and starts a more structured routine.”</p><p> Well, that idea went down like a lead balloon. </p><p>“Day care! What does she want with day-care? Are you saying I’m not looking after her properly?”</p><p>Cara was a Taurean, and Miranda could almost see her lower her head as if to charge. They were a well-matched pair though. As Cara began to glower, Miranda raised her head higher and adopted the Priestly glare. It didn’t scare Cara unfortunately, but it showed her Miranda meant business. </p><p>She refused even to answer Cara’s questions and said, “Just get on with it. Andrea has requested it especially and I completely agree with her.”  This of course, was a lie, but Cara, who adored Andrea like a mother, would find it hard to battle against both of them, and might agree more easily if she thought the plan came from Andy.</p><p>But she looked genuinely stricken. “The poor soul is so little. My baby. And what am I going to do all day, while she’s away in some germ-ridden nursery being shoved around and bitten by other people's horrible children?”</p><p>This indeed was a pitiful scenario, but Miranda refused to cave in. “The way she is heading, Amelia is more likely to do the biting. Trust me Cara. I leave it to you to find us the most suitable place, but I would like to see her enrolled for at least three sessions a week through this summer. Anyway, haven’t you got enough to do, housekeeping this great big house, and you know we all love your cooking. You can try out some new recipes! You don’t need to be stuck in the nursery every day. I’m doing this for you as much as for Amelia.”</p><p>Miranda’s employees at Runway would have been astonished to hear her be so cajoling, even complimentary to an employee. But Runway was work, and this was home. Miranda and Cara both knew they totally depended on each other to maintain a happy family, and Cara, big tough, rough woman though she was, would always be Miranda’s faithful slave. But she did take some careful managing, and she knew when Miranda was flannelling her. She rolled her eyes dramatically.</p><p>Miranda was always grateful Cara had at least accepted Andy so peacefully into their domestic arrangement. Her arrival on the scene had never been an issue, especially as Cara had loathed Stephen.  Cara simply added Andy to the clutch of those she cared deeply for, and apart from some early skirmishes over night feeds and whose baby Amelia actually was, they were perfectly happy. Andrea worked from home and this meant she could disappear upstairs to her study knowing Amelia was always loved, safe and cared for downstairs.</p><p>It was at this point that Andrea joined them in the kitchen, and saw that Miranda was preparing to leave them all for Runway. </p><p>“Can I read the book while you’re at work?”</p><p>“Of course. I need you to. It’s on my desk. Then we’ll talk about it this evening.”</p><p>They were talking obliquely, both realising this was something to keep confidential.</p><p>“I expect you’ll be far too busy to finish it anyway, while you’re at the office.”</p><p>“Yes, a packed schedule today, as usual. But I’ll try to be home for seven. What are your plans?”</p><p>“I’m going to be busy finalising all the details for the twins’ birthday party on Wednesday evening. Cara and I will go through all the arrangements, and I’m worried about security. I think we need more people on the door. Half their year group seems to be expected, and their surnames read like a list of New York’s finest. Fifteen is a tricky age.”</p><p>“Fifteen… Do you think this will be the last time they’ll want an old-fashioned party at all? In many ways that would be a relief.”</p><p>Miranda was packing papers into her briefcase, and looking around for her glasses, so she didn’t catch Cara’s little explosion of anger until it had spilled out.</p><p>“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” the woman virtually shouted at her. “Why are you wishing away all the joy of having kids? Won’t it happen soon enough? Come on Amelia, let’s go upstairs and leave your Mommies together so they can think how to make my life even more miserable!”</p><p>And she scooped up the astonished toddler, and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind her.</p><p>“What the heck was that all about?” asked Andy.</p><p>“Oh, I suggested, no, I told her to look for a good nursery where Amelia can go a few times each week, like we discussed yesterday, to run off steam and learn some manners.  But maybe Cara is the one who needs to learn manners. She gets worse week by week.”</p><p>“I hate to say it in present company, but maybe it’s the menopause? She is almost your age.”</p><p>“Hmmph.” Miranda’s response was low key, but her eyes flashed. Hot flashes were creeping up on her, and she was suffering through the summer heat. She didn’t need reminding what might lie ahead. Hormone replacement therapy looked more attractive by the month.  </p><p>“Possibly. We have to make allowances, I suppose. See what you can do to cheer her up and keep her civil.”</p><p>“Telling her we hope for another baby before long would do that, sure enough!”</p><p>Miranda shook her head in warning.</p><p>“Yes, but it is far too early to even bring up the idea. Let’s talk more about it ourselves, and then we need to share the plan with the girls. They could veto it, after all.”</p><p>“Oh, they won’t, not if we ask them nicely. They love Amelia so much and were the ones to insist we had her, weren’t they?”</p><p>“Yes, but now I really must run, darling.” Miranda dropped her bags for a moment and pulled Andy in for a big hug and a sweet kiss. Then as she picked them up again, she also grabbed the Book and scurried towards the street door. As Andy went to help her by opening the door, Miranda had a sudden thought.</p><p>“By the way, you never told me how you tracked down the book. Did you go and visit the home of the reviewer? What was his name, again? I did not recognise it.”</p><p>“Yes, that’s how I found it. But the reviewer did us a great favour. But it wasn’t a guy. It was a woman. I’ll tell you the story later this evening.”</p><p>“OK. Good-bye my darling.”</p><p>“Bye!”</p><p>And Miranda strode down the steps to where Roy was waiting with the Town car, her mind half at Runway already.</p><p> </p><p>At the earliest opportunity, after she had placated Cara, and they had finalised plans for the party, Andy took the book from Miranda’s desk in her study, curled herself up on the ottoman in the same room, and began to read. It was a surreal experience, hearing the words of the deceased musician, who might be Miranda’s father, coming so clearly from the pages. </p><p>Sheldon’s review had been right. The narrative focussed not on his eminent career as a violinist and music teacher, but on an inner turmoil and dilemma about the fact that he had lost a child, a child he refused initially to accept and claim as his own, and then who had been the focus of a lifetime search, in order to make amends for abandoning its mother. </p><p>Rebuilding a shattered life after the Second World War he had found family connections among the Jewish Diaspora community in East London and had been embraced and healed from some of his worst trauma by their love and acceptance. As a young single man in the early fifties, it was only natural that he should marry from within the same community, especially as it so clearly needed rebuilding after the ravages of the Holocaust. </p><p>As Andy read further, she saw how delicately he talked about his wife, the mother of his children, and realised that this book could only have been written after she had died. It was as though the silence of fifty years had suddenly broken, and the anguish of that fateful love affair with the little Irish maid in the school simply poured out of the pages. </p><p>The guilt, the cowardice in not acknowledging his adultery and the child who was conceived through it was clearly admitted. Then, as the knowledge had gnawed away at him, especially as he and his wife had progressed to have several more children of their own, he had eventually decided to do the right thing and look for his lost girlfriend and her child.  With a friend he had gone to her grandmother’s house in the East End, only to be promptly shown the door and told never to come again. The girl he had loved had been married off, and that was that. </p><p>The second half of the book was devoted to reflections and regret which had dogged the rest of his life. It was a psychological response to the self-inflicted loss. In many ways, it was a simple enough story, one which might have been replicated in a thousand families, especially after the war, but the quality of the writing and the sensitivity of the reflections raised it to the level of literature. Andy could see how this book might easily make the best seller list, and even be in the running for a prize. </p><p>Always a quick reader, she was able to finish the book in one long sitting, and was left in no doubt whatsoever that Miranda was the child in question. It meant that, should she choose to, she could at last reconnect with all her living relatives on her father’s side.  This was explosive in its potential impact on their little family.</p><p>To start with, would she want to? Would she want the possibility of further pain if the half-brothers and sisters rebuffed her? And just as potentially painful, could she allow the world to know, that she was the lost child?  Miranda Priestly always kept her family life strictly private as far as she could. But the red-tops and social media trolls would have a field day, if this became public knowledge. It could also impact on the twins, on them all. </p><p>Andrea’s instinctive reaction was to want to protect them all from it becoming public knowledge. Currently, only one person might suspect, and this was Sheldon, the reviewer, whom Andy had been foolish enough to tell there might be a ‘family connection.’</p><p>But she could trust Sheldon, surely, not to reveal what she’d said. While she was thinking over these things, her phone rang and she saw it was Sheldon herself on the line.</p><p>“Andrea Sachs! Let’s fix up a time for your interview, why don’t we? I have my calendar in front of me. When can you fit me in this week?”</p><p>Andrea was flattered Sheldon could call so promptly and ask so politely, and was pleased to  be asked.  “How about Friday morning?” she suggested. “Our twins’ fifteenth birthday party is on Wednesday evening, and then I will need a day to clear up the business and pay or thank everyone involved.”</p><p>“Friday it is then. Oh, and Andrea, I’m sending you round a little present. Just a selection of my books for some bedtime reading.”</p><p>Andrea ended the call after a few more words of thanks and chat, and then put the phone down. So Stella Hudspeth novels would be piled up on her side of the bed, would they? For some strange, irrational reason, it felt as though Stella/Sheldon was invading her and Miranda’s bedroom. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.</p><p> But it was a generous offer, and she certainly was ready to read some fiction, especially after the day she’d spent on the autobiography, such a sad read, of Miranda’s father.  She looked forward to the parcel arriving, and to her second meeting with Sheldon. planned for the end of the week, with uncomplicated pleasure.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Miranda's view of married life.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A parcel arrives, a parcel no-one has time to open.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What’s that parcel of books doing on the dining room table?”</p><p>Miranda noticed everything, and her gaze had fallen on the package as soon as she’d walked through the front door on Monday evening and glanced into the large room on her right.  It was one thing Andrea still had to adjust to, even after four years together, Miranda’s acute visual sensitivity. It could be both a blessing and a curse.</p><p>Miranda saw everything around her in enhanced technicolour, and rarely tolerated any muddle or messes, in either her office or home. They almost set off an allergic reaction, so the townhouse was as neat as a pin in all the common areas. </p><p>Every surface was clear and polished, every cupboard carefully stocked according to some logical theory of Miranda’s invention. The twins’ rooms were now their own domain, but as they grew older, even they realised that looking at normal teenage chaos made their mom feel almost physically ill, so gradually conformed more and more to her way of doing things. </p><p>	Andrea, on the other hand, try as she might, still found it a pointless and  tedious business, constantly having to remember to put things away and leave nothing out in plain view all the time. She had a strong hunch that her dominant side of the brain was the right side, while Miranda’s must surely be on the left.  </p><p>For example, Andy felt much more at ease with visualising a book plan if it was laid out on the table, or sometimes even all over the floor of her study, rather than filed away. And their bedroom conformed far more to Miranda’s obsession with tidiness than to her disregard for it. Left to her own devices, Andrea suspected she could turn into a very messy person.</p><p>	Anyway, the offending parcel had just arrived, by special courier, and she’d not even had any time to open it. It was now seven o’clock on the dot, Cara’s special chicken lasagna was in the oven, all the girls, big and little, were sitting round the table, and Andrea had enjoyed a productive home-based day. The weight of the book still lay on her mind, but after dinner she and Miranda could sit down together and reflect on it together. Miranda needed to read the final third of her father’s story, anyway.</p><p>	She answered Miranda’s question. “I think they are a present from Sheldon Murphy, you know, the reviewer I met yesterday. She wants me to read some of her fiction.”</p><p>	Miranda registered this, but didn’t comment. It was obvious she was happy to be home, but as exhausted as one might expect after a day of continual meetings and run-throughs.</p><p>	“Did you eat any lunch?” asked Andy, relieving her of her briefcase and summer jacket, as she met her in the hall, and kissed her on the cheek.</p><p>	Miranda looked vaguely guilty. “I think so,” she said. “To be honest, I can’t even remember. Whatever‘s for dinner smells good, though.” </p><p>	“Yes. Cara repented as soon as you left, and has compensated for her temper tantrum this morning, by producing one of your favourite dishes.”</p><p>	She spoke quietly as she didn’t want the twins to hear her criticising their housekeeper/nanny in any way, even mildly. </p><p>	“She went home at six-thirty, after Amelia’s bath-time. And she promises she will go in search of a good play-group or day nursery just as soon as we’re the other side of the twins birthday party.”</p><p>	“How’s the prep for that going?”</p><p>	“Perfect. You have no need to worry. We’ve arranged everything.”</p><p>	“What would I do without you?”</p><p>	Miranda put up a hand and fondled Andy’s hair, pulling it back from her face a little. It was one of her characteristic caresses, and Andy turned her face into the palm of Miranda’s hand and kissed the soft skin at the base of her thumb.</p><p>	“Come and eat, my darling. Then I’ll tell you about the book. I finished reading it earlier.”</p><p>	 So Miranda followed her into the family kitchen, and was rewarded by a beaming smile as wide as the ocean from Amelia. She was sitting in her highchair still, in a pair of pajamas with little ponies all over them. Even at two, she was following big sister Cassidy in her passion for horses.</p><p>	“Mommy’s home!” she announced to everyone. “I loves you so much Mommy!”</p><p>	“How lovely,” replied Miranda, bending to kiss her. “I love you too, my darling. Now Cassie, Caro, tell me all about your day.” And she washed her hands and then sat down in her usual seat at the head of the table.</p><p>The twins talked mainly about the party in two days’ time. They were excited, even though they pretended it would be no big thing. What they didn’t know was that Andy had secretly booked an appearance from one of the upcoming boybands in New York to sing for them. </p><p>The venue had a sound-stage, and a dance floor, so the party would really be a disco event in all but name. Both the girls had a high-brow side to them, but neither wanted to appear a nerd in front of their school friends, so having these guys appear, singing their latest hit single, would be a perfect birthday surprise. </p><p>After dinner, and after she had settled Amelia into bed with her menagerie of stuffed animals and several bedtime stories, Andrea lay in Miranda’s arms on the large couch. They were in their main living room, and together, beginning to process the continuing revelations about her father. </p><p> </p><p>So much new knowledge about the hidden paternal side of her family had definitely shaken Miranda, but she had travelled a long way emotionally since the days when she couldn’t even bear to think about any of her childhood and youth. Like Andrea, she now thought more about what impact the revelation might have on their girls, rather than its effect on herself.</p><p> She took great comfort in that she had a complete family already, here in her home, and she had also found her beloved brother Charles, and her nephew Harry, as well as all the crazy Bostonian cousins. Did she even need to open the Pandora’s box of the Jewish side of her heritage?</p><p>She said to Andy, as she held her close against her breast, and nuzzled her face, “I agree with you. Let’s keep this to ourselves. I will finish reading the book tonight, and then let us wait to see if one of Joseph’s sons does come to New York on a book tour. Give me a week or two to absorb what the book tells us, and we can then make a judgement then, about whether or not we contact him.</p><p>Andrea nodded, and obviously enjoyed the nuzzling, adding a little herself in return.  She clearly had even more personal things on her mind, as she took Miranda’s hands in her own, and stroked her fingers, one by one. She then rolled Miranda’s wedding and engagement rings round a little. </p><p>“You know we talked of a new baby. I’d like us to move forward on the idea, Shall we approach Bunny again? What do you think?”</p><p>Miranda had a sudden hot desire to be able to give Andrea a baby all by herself. But Benjamin, her young cousin, (known to the world as “le Lapin Noir” the upcoming Parisian dress-designer, and to his family as ‘Bunny’), had proved a good choice as a sperm donor father for Amelia. Miranda couldn’t see why it shouldn’t work well again, if he was still willing.</p><p>Amelia certainly was full of hybrid vigour and was as fit as a little fiddle. The musicianship from the McCarthy side of the family was already shining through as well, as she could easily hold a tune, and loved singing along with the twins when they played duets for her on the piano.</p><p>“Tomorrow I’ll call Bunny and talk to him personally,” she said. “ ‘Carpe Diem’ and all that. I’ll find out when he’s next coming to the States.”</p><p>Andrea nodded and for the next twenty minutes they lay together in peace, simply enjoying being in each other’s arms. Then Miranda remembered the parcel, still to be opened downstairs.</p><p>“Tell me all about your encounter with Sheldon Murphy. What exactly happened when you went to borrow the book?  And why did she send you a set of her novels?”</p><p>Andrea snuggled closer and shut her eyes. “I’m not sure. It was a very unusual encounter,” she began. And then she told Miranda all about her visit to the apartment high up in the new block, and the woman she found there. </p><p>“We’re meeting up again on Friday. She knew all about my writing, and she wants to interview me for an article in the New Yorker. Isn’t that amazing?”</p><p>Miranda listened, and wondered what it was about the book reviewer which had so obviously caught Andy’s attention. As Andrea described the woman and her surroundings, the piles of books, the revelation that she was a leading ‘airport’ author, it was obvious that she was very taken with her. Miranda didn’t state the obvious, which was that she could so easily have organised any number of reviews and interviews in the New Yorker if Andrea had only let her.</p><p> Miranda had to admit she’d never read any Stella Hudspeth thrillers herself. Why would she? Her life was thrilling enough as it was. But the review had been well-written, so maybe the woman was a decent novelist as well.</p><p> She resolved to do a little research of her own, just to check that her wife’s new friend was ‘safe’. It was the same sort of concern she’d have if either of the twins developed a new friendship. Well, at least, that’s what Miranda told herself! </p><p>Whether it was the menopause spiking up her libido, or simply the heat of the summer evening, but Miranda suddenly felt an strong urge to take her wife early to bed,  and give her something other than novels to concentrate on for an hour or two. She pulled her hand away from Andy’s fingers and then very blatantly pushed it down inside her wife’s silk blouse, invaded the light sports bra she wore beneath, and cupped her right breast. She squeezed Andy’s exquisitely tight nipple, and then left her hand warmly wrapped round her breast in complete ownership.</p><p>“Aah!” sighed Andy, wriggling with surprise and arousal. “Mrs Priestly, what are you doing?”</p><p>“Reminding you we’re married. ‘To have and to hold….’ “</p><p>“OK. So are we having a games night tonight? It’s only Monday…”</p><p>“But Wednesday will be taken up with the twins’ party, and I’m not missing my fun.”</p><p>“Well, un-hand me woman, and I’ll go and sort out the animals. I’ll meet you in the bedroom in ten minutes, OK?”</p><p>Miranda reluctantly released her, and then gave her a little push off the couch.</p><p>“Fine,” she said. “But bring some of the chocolate ice-cream out of the freezer when you come back up. I am in urgent need of dessert.”</p><p>Andrea’s faced showed mock horror. She knew what a lethal combination Miranda and chocolate ice-cream were, especially late at night, and she gave her one of her sweetest smiles.</p><p>“Yes, Miranda,… darling,” she said, rolling her rrs provocatively.<br/>
It was obvious there would be no need of bedtime reading that night. Miranda would be providing any thrills needed. </p><p>“I want you upstairs in five minutes. Not ten,” she said as she stood up and sashayed out of the room. “And bring one spoon.”</p><p>There was one area of their life where Miranda didn’t have any wish to keep things clean and tidy. Andy was going to be in one hot and dirty mess before midnight if she had any say in it. Which of course, she always did. Miranda claimed the right to be in charge in bed whenever she wanted to, and intended it to stay that way. Married life with Andy suited her very well. Very well indeed. </p><p>“Go on then! Run.” and she gave Andy an extra incentive to get a move on, whacking her on the behind as she went past her. “You know how I love to be kept waiting!”</p><p>Andy ran.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. All a matter of timing.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Miranda is disappointed, and you know how well that goes down.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Miranda glanced at the clock on the office wall. Three pm in New York, so it would be nine in the evening in Paris. A lifetime of working across time-zones had given Miranda an inbuilt knowledge of when to contact her many associates and fellow editors all over the world. Runway had editions in nearly every major developed country, and she now had the executive direction over all the other Runway outlets. It was a promotion she had taken up after her sabbatical and it fed into her unlimited appetite for power and control over her global world of fashion journalism.</p><p> 	Normally she made calls whenever she wanted to, and let the recipients adjust. It sometimes amused her to sadistically pull people from their beds at 5 am their time, or if she was feeling particularly ferocious over some appalling mistake or shoddy piece of magazine production, 2 am. Being nice, in her opinion, rarely produced the best. Despite all of Andy’s hard work trying to reform her, there was still a little corner of Miranda’s soul which would be forever wicked.</p><p>But that was business. This was personal, and Miranda didn’t want to upset the delicate sensibilities of Bunny, her crazily camp young cousin. She had decided nine in the evening would be a good time to catch him, hopefully at home, relaxing after dinner. </p><p>There was a slight gap in the hectic business of her afternoon, so she would follow up on her promise to Andrea and call him now. She marched across to the glass door separating her from her assistants, and kicked it shut, then put her personal cell-phone to her ear and pressed speed dial for his name. </p><p>“Bunny, darling… How are you?”</p><p>Then she held the phone back a few inches from her ear. Bunny’s hysterical shrieks of enthusiasm were, as always, deafening.</p><p>“Miranda!” </p><p>Knowing she spoke French like a native, he launched into a long stream of adulation and exaggerated praise in his adopted language, and then, remembering his manners, asked after the health and wellbeing of Andy, the twins and his little daughter. </p><p>“They are fine. We are all doing well, thanks. Amelia is growing fast and that is the main reason for my call. Andrea and I appreciated your help with her conception, (Miranda was only too well aware it wouldn’t have happened without him!) and we are hoping to enlarge our family with another child next year. We are both hoping you might be the donor for our new baby as well. What do you think?” </p><p>Miranda was quite complacently optimistic that there would be no problem and Bunny would agree immediately. He had thought it such an honour to be asked the first time, he had virtually lain down on the carpet in front of her and kissed her feet.   But this time, she heard him stutter slightly, and whisper into the phone. He changed languages to speak in English.</p><p>“Miranda. I’m taking the phone next door, into the bedroom, so we can talk about this in private.”</p><p>She heard him move out of the room he was in, and then the sound of a door closing. </p><p>“Miranda darling, I would love to. I really would. But Bruno…Bruno won’t allow it again.”</p><p>Miranda knew Bunny lived with a male partner who was a French fashion stylist, some ten years older than him. But she’d never before heard him say there had been a problem with Bruno or about him donating his sperm so they could have a father for Amelia who was closely related to Miranda.</p><p>“Won’t allow it? That sounds as though you are in a rather coercive relationship, sweetie. Why wouldn’t he allow it?”</p><p>“He saw a picture of you and Andrea at the Met gala last month, and he told me he hadn’t realised before what a famous and gloriously handsome couple you are. He said Andrea looked like a goddess, and I think it just made him very jealous. He says I am not to father any more of her children. That I was being emotionally unfaithful. I’m really sorry, Miranda, really sorry.”</p><p>Bunny did sound genuinely upset, as well he might. For a moment, Miranda considered despatching a hit squad to remove Bruno from the picture. But she knew Andrea wouldn’t allow that and would be especially pissed off if she had to spend the next twenty years visiting her in prison, so she accepted his words and tried to hide her intense disappointment.</p><p>“Bunny, don’t worry. We’ll find another solution. Don’t let it ruin your relationship. But can’t you reassure Bruno he has nothing to fear, that you already signed a contract with us, saying you claimed no parental rights?”</p><p>“I know, but he wants to be my family, only him. I can ask him, of course. But I don’t think he’ll change his mind, and I do love him, Miranda. I can’t go against his wishes.”</p><p>“No, I understand. Just let me know if the situation changes. Goodbye then for now and stay safe.”</p><p>Then Miranda heard a door opening, and Bruno raising his voice, demanding to know in French what Bunny was doing and who he was talking to. She did the wisest thing and promptly ended the call.</p><p>Damn. Yet again, Miranda cursed the fact that she couldn’t change sex and father their new baby herself. They would have to just think outside the box.</p><p>Then one of her assistants buzzed through.<br/>
“Your 3.45 appointment people are here, Miranda. Shall I send them in?”<br/>
And Miranda’s mind went back into the work of the day. </p><p> </p><p>Back home, Andy had opened the parcel of six books from Stella/ Sheldon, and had spread them out on the dining table to look over them. They were all chunky four hundred pagers, with a themed cover design which seemed to have too many daggers dripping with blood for her taste, but they looked easy, exciting reads. She disposed of the cardboard wrapping, and then gathered them up into a neat armful. </p><p>When she next had to go upstairs, she carried them with her, and stowed them in her study on one of the bookshelves. She checked down the fly-leaf at the list in order of publication, and found Stella had included the first in the series which was now a network television crime show. She would start with that one then, and set it aside. It could go on the night-stand beside their bed, and she went through to the bed-room to add it to her collection. </p><p>She moved a little stiffly, as the intense workout she’d received at Miranda’s hands the night before began to catch up with her. Andrea’s joints were flexible, and she had good thigh muscles, but riding Miranda sometimes resembled going a mile on a bucking bronco. She hoped the girls wouldn’t notice. Cassidy who was still horse-mad, had to be chauffeured back and forth to the riding centre later, and she had already taken Caroline round to ‘hang-out’ with a couple of her girlfriends. Amelia and Cara were being best mates in the kitchen. </p><p>But none of them could have guessed what had been going on under the light of the June moon, up in their bedroom. Andy had crawled out of bed early in order to put the bed sheets and towels in the washing machine and get them laundered even before Cara came to work. She made up the bed with fresh linen herself, so as not to raise any other suspicions.</p><p>Last night’s sex games had included having chocolate ice-cream placed in frozen dollops all along her body from her breasts down to her inner thighs, and onto her knees, and being instructed to lie still while Miranda had leisurely eaten her way through the dessert.  Not moving had proved impossible, of course, and things had got very messy.</p><p>Miranda had consumed the ice-cream, and then she consumed Andy, throwing her legs up over her shoulders, and burying her face into the deep and dark delicious wetness between them.  There had been quite a large amount of melted ice-cream slopping about as Miranda’s human pudding plate had grown warmer and warmer. </p><p>When Miranda was in full control mode, Andrea just let her lead the dance. The things they got up to sometimes even made Andrea blush when she thought about them, and she suspected Miranda would indulge more often in even more shenanigans and role-plays if she encouraged her. She was a very imaginative woman, and Andy knew how to provoke her dom. fantasies into scary reality without too much trouble.</p><p> The only thing which often stopped them going the whole S&amp;M way was the annoying tendency they both had to disrupt their role plays by seeing the funny side and breaking into screams of laughter. Miranda in leather, playing with a riding crop, never frightened Andy. But naked Miranda, her eyes as scorching hot as the sun, and her finger nails as red as fire,  one look from her had Andrea completely subjugated. </p><p>But at times Andrea liked to terrorise Miranda as well. Who would have thought she could reduce Miranda to a quivering puddle of fear and pleading, like she did on some notable occasions. Their sex life was nothing if not lively.</p><p>But this Tuesday night, they were both more than tired, and content just to lie breast to breast in their bed, and gently caress each other. When the twins were with them in the house, they tried to wear pajamas, as Amelia might stir in her room down the corridor and need one of them to go to her. But Miranda even then liked to pull open the buttons on Andy’s jacket and see her breasts tumble out in front of her. She liked it even better when Andy lay above her and she could suck and nip at the breasts, as Andy’s hair feathered over her face and tickled her neck.</p><p> When they ended the day together, in those blessed hours after the rest of the family were asleep, Miranda gathered Andrea into her arms and told her the bad news about Bunny’s reluctance to act as their sperm donor for a second time. </p><p>“His partner sounds far too controlling. I’m not happy about it,” she said.</p><p>Andrea, ever reasonable, said, “I kind of understand how Bruno feels though. You wouldn’t like it if I acted as a surrogate mother for them, would you?”</p><p>Miranda hissed at the very thought.<br/>
“It’s not the same at all!”</p><p>“Well, it would be a hell of a bigger commitment. And don’t worry, I’m not volunteering. But there is some parity, isn’t there? We will just have to find someone else, that’s all. Some solution will occur. How about implanting one of your eggs in me, that’s what some lesbian couples do.”</p><p>Miranda threw back the covers as a sudden hot flush shot through her body. The days of her regularly ovulating were drawing to a close, she could tell.</p><p>“Far too risky, given my age. No. We’ll find a different way around the problem. One way or another, I’m definitely going to give you a child by this time next year.”</p><p>And Miranda reached up and turned on the air-conditioning. She fell asleep in the cool air and Andy re-buttoned up her pajamas. Oh dear, now it was quite chilly, and she didn’t feel like sleeping. She reached down beside the bed and pulled up the Stella Hudspeth novel. </p><p>With Miranda asleep on her chest, she switched on the little bedside reading lamp, and began to discover just what sort of stories her new friend liked to write. Maybe it would be fun to write a blockbuster and make a heap of money. Andy decided to delve into Stella’s mind, and see what lurked there. After all, she had been especially invited, hadn’t she?</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Hopelessly addicted to Andy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The morning after the twins' birthday party. Everybody, especially Miranda, feels more than a little fragile.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The twins’ party turned into a total nightmare for Miranda, an immense logistical challenge for Andrea, and the talk of the town for all the Dalton parents who had delivered and then collected their over-excited teenagers. They had hustled and gossiped round the door of the venue in the hope of seeing the boy-band members, or if not them, then at least the infamous Miranda Priestly and her entourage. It had been quite a night. </p><p>The only person who didn’t have a thumping headache the following morning was Amelia, who had missed out on all the fun, staying at home with Granny Jenny, who had come to New York to baby-sit and also congratulate her darling granddaughters on reaching their mid-teens.  Amelia had woken before six, full of the joys of summer, and had toured the house singing at the top of her voice, and banging a tin tray with a large spoon as she went.</p><p>	Miranda confiscated the improvised musical instrument, and deposited their little girl on Andy’s side of the bed. Then she went into the bathroom to shower and prepare for another long day at Runway. She wished she could be more like Jenny, who at sixty had decided to retire from her work as head of the Cincinnati children’s department, and now ambled gently from one of her children’s families to another, wherever she was most needed. </p><p>Compared to her mother-in-law, Miranda felt like a horse firmly harnessed into the shafts of a racing chariot. Something always whipped her forwards whenever she tried to slow down. Editing Runway and her perfectionism was still a compulsive and lethal combination. </p><p>She was a slave to her work when what she really wanted to do was lie down and be a slave to Andrea. Half of her sexual fantasies centred around being tied up on their bed and being topped by her wife. The other half involved the opposite, flipping Andy over and nipping and slapping her silly until she screamed. She understood the paradox of the two sides of her sexual identity. But the fact that Andy would let her play both these games was a huge comfort.</p>
<p>She let the hot water from the shower pour over her head, and tried to live in the moment, rather than have a running dialogue in her brain about sex, and about all the things she should do that day. Ideally, she would also have loved to have spent time with Jenny, whom she dearly loved and often went to for wise counsel, but there would be no time today, and Jenny was moving on to visit Hannah, Andrea’s sister and her husband, Harry, Miranda’s brilliant but dreadfully teasing nephew.  </p><p>Harry had come to the party, to lend a hand as a bouncer, and he’d been invaluable in what had become an appalling media scrum. Andrea had informed the police, and anyone else who needed to know, but even she had been out-fazed and out-witted by the hoards of young teens who had tried to gate-crash the event as soon as word about it got out on social media. </p><p>Miranda resolved that for the twins’ sixteenth birthday, she would fly them by helicopter up to an island on a remote lake in Northern Canada and leave them there with a tent and a picnic basket. Or better still, she thought with a wicked grin, inform Geoff, their father, that it was his privilege to organise the party or whatever horrendous event they wanted next year.</p><p>She turned the shower tap from scaldingly hot around to bitingly cold and gave herself a minute of an icy cold shower to finish off.  It was torture but did the trick of waking her up properly, calming her thumping headache and settling her nerves.</p><p> Running in the background of her brain she still had all the tension of meeting her father on paper, and learning far, far too much about him. All her life she had painted him in primary colours as a villain, almost on a par with her bestial stepfather. For hadn’t he condemned her and her mother to that life in the beginning?</p><p> But Miranda was intelligent enough to know that this picture would dissolve if she believed even half what his autobiography told her. Her father had been a victim of Nazism, and the appalling level of loss he had suffered as a youngster in the thirties and forties.  He obviously clung to his Jewish community, to his wife. Chasing a young maid who worked at his school had been incidental to his life, but an episode which had clearly haunted him for ever. But it had also given her life. She wouldn’t even exist if he hadn’t strayed. And wasn’t her life a glorious thing, despite all the bad times?</p><p>Apportioning blame, in any case, couldn’t heal their relationship. Her father was deceased. There could be no reconciliation or meaningful forgiveness. It was too late. </p><p>The big question for her now, was what could his legacy be in her life? What could she take forward? Should she be brave and make a connection with his son, her half-brother, if he came to America? These were potentially life-changing questions for her, Andrea and their children. She hardly knew how to tackle them.</p><p>Andy, meanwhile, had taken Amelia downstairs and was feeding her breakfast in the kitchen, while she simultaneously chatted to her mother. She’d told Cara not to come in until noon, as the poor woman had been on duty until well past midnight, helping her and the venue staff clear up after the party. </p><p>“So Bunny won’t be able to be a donor after all, and we will have to find another…”</p><p>Miranda came down, beautifully dressed and made up as usual, and showing no signs of her thumping headache. She caught the end of the conversation, and said, “Andrea love, don’t worry. We will find the right solution between us.” </p><p>She took the cup of freshly brewed coffee Andy passed over to her and sipped it, standing by the worktop. She felt Jenny looking at her with one eyebrow slightly raised. Miranda recognised it. It was the same sort of silent reproach she sometimes used herself on Andy and the twins. </p><p>“I’m fine,” she said in reply to the question not asked. “I’m so sorry I can’t spend more time with you.”</p><p>“How about coming out to Ohio for the July 4th holiday?” </p><p>“The girls go to their camps straight after. I need to get them ready. How about late August?” </p><p>Miranda retained more thana little emotional crush on her mother-in-law, if such an idea wasn’t completely inappropriate. Jenny Sachs was the big sister Miranda had never had, the person who could enter her soul’s darkest corners more easily than anyone else apart from Andy, and soothe them. If anyone had wisdom to impart about following the footprints of one’s dead father, Jenny would be the one to have it. </p><p>Jenny said, “I’m sorry too, that I have to move onto Hannah’s, but I promised I’d baby-sit Johnny while she is in Tokyo. Come over here, you beautiful woman and give me a hug, anyway.”</p><p>They both stood up, and Miranda felt Jenny’s strength and calmness enter her own tousled spirit, through a full-on hug. Some things did come as an act of grace, and being given the gift of Jenny’s friendship along with Andy’s love had been such a lovely bonus.</p><p> She’d realised then just how few true friends she’d had before they met. Gloria was her best and oldest friend in the States, her ex-lover from her twenties. But Gloria was married to Lee and they lived in Laguna on the west coast. Amelia’s first birthday had been the last time they’d met.</p><p>She said to Jenny now, “Let me call you later tonight at Hannah’s. I would love to talk to you properly for an hour or so.”  And Jenny squeezed her hand in a positive agreement. </p><p>Andy walked with Miranda as far as the front door to see her off to work. She was almost as intuitive as her Mom when it came to reading Miranda’s mind, and knew she was unsettled about her father, and finding a father for their new baby.</p><p>“Don’t worry. I’ll sort out the mess here and get the twins through the after-effects of last night. I bet all their mates think it was the greatest party of the year. Nobody died after all. And I don’t think anyone is in jail.”</p><p>Miranda put her arms round her. “When Cara arrives, why don’t you come downtown and bring me a brown-bag lunch to the office.”</p><p>“What? Brown bags? Who are you, and what have you done with my wife?”</p><p>Miranda looked up into Andrea’s soft tobacco-coloured brown eyes.</p><p>“Humour me, darling. Do a bit of assisting, eh? I’ve missed you somehow over the last few days. I could manage half an hour around 1.30.”</p><p>“Pastrami on rye?”</p><p>“Mmn, no, lox and cream cheese on a bagel.”</p><p>“You’re accessing your paternal side then?”</p><p>“Maybe. That’s mainly what I wanted to talk to you about.”</p><p>“Oh, how disappointing. Here I was, anticipating a torrid twenty minutes, throwing you across your desk, like in the old days.”</p><p>Andy rolled her eyes and gave Miranda a little goose for good measure, making her jump.</p><p>“Don’t say ‘the old days’. We’ve only been married four years.”</p><p>“Four wonderful years. Don't worry. I’ll be there, at one thirty on the dot. I can even bring a Starbucks if it gives you a thrill.”</p><p>“No need. We have an expresso machine installed, as you well know. It was on your orders.” </p><p>“OK, Guilty as charged. ‘Bye then, light of my life. I can see Roy down there waiting  in the car for you.”</p><p>Miranda pulled her in for a last embrace, a hot, dry, yearning kiss on the mouth. There was no escaping it. She was hopelessly addicted, and Andrea was her intoxicant. She wondered sometimes how she would live even for a day without her. Life pre-Andrea now seemed just a dream.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Don't judge a book by its cover, Miranda style.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Andrea strolled quietly into the foyer of her old place of work at 1.15 carrying two brown bags and a tray of coffee, her comfortably worn messenger bag slung across her hip. She wore comfortable jeans and a pair of cross trainers, and the leather jacket Miranda always liked, and felt quite at peace with herself. </p><p>In many ways visiting Miranda at the office was like re-crossing an old battlefield. She watched the wraith-like models in their clattering heels rush past her, still living on little more than adrenaline and fresh air.  But with so many new publications being produced from within the building, there were plenty of normal shaped people to observe as well. </p><p> She showed her permanent security pass (care of Miranda) to the guys on reception and went through to wait for the next elevator. In the four years since she’d worked there, most of the Runway old guard had moved on. Nigel was now editor-in-chief of Gangway, a separate part of the empire. Serena and Emily had moved together to work in Runway London, and even Irv Ravitz, for so many years the bane of Miranda’s life, had been shuttled off into an uneasy retirement, very much under the control of his wife.</p><p>The elevator deposited her on the seventeenth floor, and she went straight down the long glass lined corridor towards Miranda’s office. With most of her old colleagues gone, Andy could keep up the pretence that in Runway she would be anonymous, and no-one would recognise her.</p><p> But of course, everyone working for Runway knew exactly who she was and treated her with the extreme deference her status demanded. They even lived in awe of her, trying to imagine how she had transformed from a lowly assistant to becoming the consort of the high Queen of fashion. Andrea was also always friendly, cheerful and interested in their work and their personal lives, so that among the editorial staff her name was golden. </p><p>How she managed to keep Miranda happy, and how she dared kiss, let alone do anything else to her, was beyond their wildest powers of imagination. Miranda’s manners may have improved since her marriage, but she was still feared and revered in every department. No-one wanted to get one of those whispered tongue lashings, or just as bad, one of the death stares.</p><p> Andrea had also grown into a real beauty through her twenties. She still had the enormous eyes and stunning mouth which had first captured Miranda’s attention. Now though, the old shaggy waif look had gone, especially once her hair had recovered from having to be shaved off after the mugging in Central Park.* She happily let Miranda dress her for any of their formal outings, and also let her organise a series of hairstyles at the hands of New York’s finest cutters. Andrea remained obstinately casual about her day to day image, but she was a beautiful woman in love, and that was the best cosmetic in the world.</p><p>She glimpsed Miranda holding a meeting through one of the glass doors as she passed down the corridor, so went through to the Editor’s suite to wait there. Two of Miranda’s three assistants were at their desks, the third presumably in with her in the meeting. </p><p>“Hi Phoebe, how’s it going?”</p><p>Phoebe, who Miranda still sometimes carelessly called Mabel after her predecessor, looked up and shrugged her shoulders with a small smile.</p><p>“It’s fine. We’re good. Still recovering from the Gala, but getting organised on the September issue.”</p><p>“I’m hoping I might be able to take Miranda away for a week or so after the Independence Day holiday. How is her calendar looking?”</p><p>Phoebe, who as the first assistant kept Miranda’s diary, flicked it up onto a fresh screen and looked at the calendar.</p><p>“Not too bad. I don’t see anything which couldn’t be rearranged or pushed back a little.”</p><p>“Great! Can you keep the 5th to the 15th as clear as you possibly can then? And try to do it without her noticing. I want to surprise her.”</p><p>Cecil, the one current male on the assistants’ team, looked up from his desk. “Good luck with that. We’ve never managed to surprise her yet.  She must read minds as a hobby, and if you are ever trying to hide something from her, even a little thing, you can be sure it will be the first thing she’ll pick up on.”</p><p>Andy was going to agree with him wholeheartedly, but then there was a noise in the corridor.</p><p>“I can see them coming out of the meeting now,” said Phoebe. “Action stations!”</p><p>Andy laughed, but scooped up her tray of coffees and went through to Miranda’s office to set up their little lunch date.  She’d brought iced coffees, because it was a hot day in New York, and they were a sweet little reminder of the first torrid summer when she and Miranda had prowled around each other for weeks in that blistering heatwave. </p><p>Miranda had always been sending her out for coffees and then compulsively watched her, terrified of traffic accidents, as she scuttled like a little beetle across the street seventeen stories below, running off round the block to Starbucks, or on other ridiculous errands. </p><p>Miranda now strode swinging through the door, a stream of instructions pouring from her mouth as she walked, which the third assistant was feverishly trying to take down. She saw Andrea waiting by her desk and her eyes lit up. She stopped the flow of instructions and dismissed the assistant with “That’s all. I’m taking lunch now, so don’t let anyone disturb us until 2pm.”</p><p>“Yes Miranda. Of course.” And the inner door closed so Miranda and Andrea were alone.</p><p>“Hello boss.”</p><p>“Hello you.”</p><p>“Here. I’ve brought you iced coffee. Drink it before it gets warm.”</p><p>“Thank you. Hmm. That’s refreshing. Just what I needed.”</p><p>“Do I get a tip?”</p><p>“What? In the office?”</p><p>“It never used to stop you. Remember all those times you had me in your bathroom, while Emily took her twenty-minute lunch break.” **</p><p>“You were so wicked. You even made me increase the first assistant’s lunch break to half an hour. And it has remained like that ever since. It’s a wonder we get any work done here at all.”</p><p>“Sshh. Don’t waste our precious thirty minutes now then.”</p><p>Andy led Miranda over to the little couch by the window.</p><p>“Here, take your smoked salmon bagel. Mine’s a hummus pitta thingy.” </p><p>Miranda pulled out her lunch from its little bag, and rearranged it slightly, squeezing the lemon slice over the salmon, and then licking off some of the excess cream cheese. Andrea stared at her doing this with hot and hungry eyes, and decided she wanted to molest her wife then and there.</p><p> It simply wasn’t fair. Miranda looked ridiculously hot for a woman in her fifties. Andy could almost swear she could see those nipples straining under the tight white blouse that swathed her breasts. </p><p>In the old days, Andy would have assumed Miranda never stooped to notice such gawping, but now she knew much better. Miranda was an outright witch who had often flagrantly flirted with her in the early weeks when she had first become her besotted assistant.  </p><p>One night when they were in bed together, much later, she’d even admitted it, saying she used to play a game, timing herself as to how soon she turn Andy’s cheeks bright red with embarrassed lust, and make her start squirming on her chair. </p><p>“So that’s why you used to order me to sit on that hard chair in front of you to take dictation, was it? Talk about sexual harassment!”</p><p>Then Miranda had laughed that lovely, wicked laugh she reserved mainly for their bedroom.</p><p>“Guilty as charged. But you were just as bad. How you used to tease me with tiny skirts above those long legs of yours, crossing and recrossing them until I could see the colour of your underwear. I almost wished you back into the dowdy librarian disguise. Almost, but not quite.”</p><p>“You were always so horrible to me with the words from your mouth, and yet so flirting with me with your eyes. I never knew how to read you.”</p><p>At which point, Miranda had lifted her head to look up into Andrea’s eyes and whispered, “You simply needed to learn not to judge a book by its cover, darling.” Then she had started to use her mouth for something very different from any kind of speech and Andrea had melted into chocolate lava cake beneath her. </p><p>Now though, Miranda did want to talk about the book they had both read. </p><p>“I’ve decided to be brave and set up a meeting with the son. I’ve contacted the publishers and booked an interview with him, ostensibly to set up an article in a future edition of Runway.”</p><p>“You’d do that yourself? Normally you would leave that to one of the junior editors.”</p><p>“Of course, but this isn’t normal. It’s completely different. And I want you there with me. We can say you’ll be writing the article. If we don’t take to him, and don’t feel positive about the connection, then we can just go ahead on that basis. Say nothing and you can write a short review and never tell him we think his father is my father.”</p><p>Andrea thought this over as she nibbled on her cress and hummus (healthy but rather boring) roll.  She normally jumped back a mile any time Miranda offered her any writing assignments. She was so scared of being tarred with the accusation of nepotism, that she refused all the tempting and imaginative assignments Miranda kept pushing towards her.</p><p> But this was different. This was too personal a project for anyone else to undertake, she could see that, and Miranda’s fragile heart was after all her responsibility to take care of. </p><p>“OK, whatever helps you the most, of course I’ll do it. But supposing it’s the other way round? Supposing you do like him very much, and want to make the connection?”</p><p>“Then of course, I will share who and what I am with him, and we can get to know him better. But we will have to see what his reaction is.”</p><p>Andrea knew just how jealously Miranda guarded her own privacy. “We don’t want it out in the press though, do we?”</p><p>Miranda’s eyes flashed. “No, and that is my biggest worry to be honest. For the sake of the children. I know we’ve told the twins a little bit about my background, but this, if it got out, would blow the whole thing up into a tabloid frenzy and I can’t have that. So, if it looks as though that might happen, I may not even go through with it.”</p><p>“When have you set up the interview?”</p><p>“The last working day before the holiday. The day after the book comes out here in the States.”</p><p>“In about two weeks’ time then?”</p><p>“Yes. I’ll draw you up a little freelancer’s contract to write the piece.”</p><p>Then Miranda looked slyly sideways at Andy.  “Here, I know you aren’t enjoying the hummus. Finish my bagel for me. If it thrills you, my teeth marks are still on the crust.”</p><p>“You are a horrible woman.”</p><p>Andy grabbed the bagel and demolished what was left of it. Miranda cupped her face and kissed her on the lips, cream cheese, crumbs and all. Then she said, very casually. </p><p>“You’re off to see that reviewer tomorrow, aren’t you? Sheldon Murphy?”</p><p>“Uhuh.”</p><p>“Just take care you don’t give her any hint we might be interested in the book for personal reasons, will you?”</p><p>Andrea gulped. “That might be rather tricky. It was the reason I gave her for wanting to read the book in the first place. But I’ll try and lay a false trail away, if she brings it up, I’ll say we were mistaken about any link.”</p><p>“No, don’t do that, or even mention it if you can avoid it. You are the world’s worst person at lying. Your candour is legendary, darling.”</p><p>“She says she wants an in-depth interview with me, that she finds me, my writing I mean, fascinating.” </p><p>Andy didn’t say it, but the other woman’s interest in her books vaguely excited her. Miranda folded up their lunch bags and dropped them in her trash can. Then she drew Andrea close for another kiss and a hug. </p><p>“Just take care what you say, darling, how much you reveal to her. I don’t recall ever meeting your new acquaintance, but I’ve known many like her, of her type.”</p><p>“Her type?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Andy looked quizzical, but Miranda obviously wasn’t going to say any more right then. Their lunchbreak was up, and the next recipients of Miranda’s wit and wisdom were already cowering nervously in the outer office. </p><p>“Will you be home for dinner?”</p><p>“I’ll try, darling. I’ll try.”  </p><p>And Andy had to be content with that. She decided to go home and read at least one of Sheldon’s thrillers that very afternoon, if Amelia let her. It would be vital research if they were to be friends, and Sheldon would expect it, especially after sending round the parcel by special delivery!</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>* See 'A Bang on the Head'<br/>** See 'Clued up'</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Soul-mates, really?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Andrea goes to visit Sheldon and finds a wam welcome. There are chocolate cookies too.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As soon as she was three chapters into Sheldon/Stella’s first novel, Andy could see why her books sold so well. It was a real page turner, with a hidden menace of violence subtly running through every page, beneath what appeared to be a normal police procedural thriller.</p><p> A body in a dumpster, hands and head cut off, the night before a Presidential election, the plot focussed on a female police lieutenant who had to prove herself to her superiors, and also to her older male subordinates. It was in some ways a clichéd scenario, but one handled with skill and good pacing, and the characters soon seemed real.</p><p>Amelia, meanwhile, was seriously involved with dressing and redressing her family of dolls, and seemed quite happy sitting at her mother’s feet, so Andrea could speed read the pages up to halfway through the book in a couple of hours. It was enough to get a sense of Stella Hudspeth’s style and the way her plots twisted and turned.</p><p>Then Andy opened the next couple of novels in the series and noticed how the main character, the female detective, was working her way up the ranks. The murders intensified along with her, getting more gruesome and harder to unravel every time. </p><p>Andrea could see why ‘Stella’ had gathered a huge following, but she felt her genre was rather depressing in its brutality, echoing the leading male thriller writers of the day, rather than taking a more feminine take on crime and violence towards women. She decided to ask Sheldon about this, why she revealed a rather masculine mind in her writing, despite using a female protagonist. </p><p>By the following morning, she had managed to read several of the novels and was curious to see how her reading of the fiction would alter her initial impression of Sheldon when they met as arranged. </p><p>  Miranda said nothing more about the writer as they’d interacted as usual over breakfast, but as she left for the office she gave Andrea a long and unusually gentle kiss at the front door. Then she simply repeated her earlier advice. “Take care with your interview this morning, darling. Take care.”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>Though what exactly Andy had to take care about, she wasn’t altogether sure.</p><p>When she reached the apartment block, and pressed Sheldon’s bell down at street level, the door immediately opened and up on the fourteenth floor her new friend was waiting by the elevator to greet her.</p><p>“Come right on in. I’ve been waiting to see you all week.” The woman hugged Andrea as soon as she saw her and displayed such friendliness it was as though they were good old mates already. Andrea’s nerves relaxed as a result, and she let Sheldon draw her into the sunny chaos of her main living room, just as on her previous visit. </p><p>“I should have tidied up, but I think we women should learn to be more tidal than tidy, don’t you? My imagination gets stunted when everything is formal and pristine. A clear desk in my view just signifies a dry and shallow mind.”</p><p>Andy naturally immediately thought of Miranda, who always demanded a clear desk at the end of every working day, and so she wanted to disagree. No-one she knew had a more creative or multi-faceted mind than Miranda. But it seemed a rather negative thing to do to start the meeting with a disagreement, so she made no comment, even though she felt a twinge of guilt as she said nothing.</p><p>Sheldon lifted a pile of magazines from the sofa and indicated that Andrea should take their place. Then she pulled over a little coffee table and brought forward a tray with a freshly brewed cafetiere of coffee, and a plate of extravagantly large chocolate cookies. She pressed a bone-china mug of coffee into Andy’s left hand and urged her to pick up a cookie with her right.</p><p>“Go on, you must be in real need of something to eat and drink. I can imagine how much running around you have to do.”</p><p>Judging from the extremely slim figure Sheldon had, Andrea figured she hadn’t spent much time with her hand in the cookie jar very often herself. She was very skinny and intense.</p><p>The older woman seemed all brain. She certainly hadn’t spent much time choosing her outfit for the day, appearing to have just pulled on any old garments, which virtually hung off her. </p><p>But she undoubtedly had a shabby chic elegance, even though her hair was a frazzled mess and her fingers were sadly stained with nicotine.  In this she was the diametric opposite of Miranda, that was for sure! Sheldon seemed to care nothing for her own physical appearance. Everything for her seemed to be focussed on writing, and this morning, specifically on Andy’s. </p><p>The next two hour session was one of intense intellectual massaging of Andy’s writing gene. No-one before seemed to have studied her books to such an intense level. Sheldon seemed almost to know them off by heart, and her questions about Andy’s background thinking, her motivations, her characters’ development, and so much more were forensic in their accuracy and in the way they probed into her soul. The time went by so fast, Andrea soon forgot any nerves and just chattered on regardless. It was such a treat to meet someone so in tune with her mind. </p><p>“Fiction writing is so different from journalism, or articles. It has to come from our sub-conscious, from some subterranean forge for our ideas. If you have a shallow mine to dig, then nothing can be unearthed of much value. But yours, your sub-conscious is obviously so rich. I was impressed, and I want us to be good, good friends. You are a remarkable writer for one so young.”</p><p>Andrea mentally squirmed. She usually mistrusted flowery compliments, and Miranda’s laconic “Acceptable” judgement on anything she had shown her had always been more than a sufficient accolade to send her swinging from the chandelier.</p><p> But here Sheldon was, even older, highly experienced and a mistress of the craft of fiction writing. Andrea decided to accept her assessment at its face value, and was also determined to learn as much as she could from the novelist. She realised how few people she knew who wrote for a living. </p><p>“Tell me about your working day, how much undivided attention are you able to give to your writing?” Sheldon next asked.</p><p>  Her pad was already full of written notes. She used Pitman’s shorthand like a professional reporter of the old school, but had also switched on a little recorder to catch Andrea’s replies in full.</p><p>“Well, it’s a little patchy right now. We have a two-year-old, as well as teenage twins, and I still like to help my wife’s days go smoothly as much I can. I manage a few hours of writing usually, either in the middle of the morning, or from 1pm to three. When the girls come home from school, I’m pretty well tied up chauffeuring them back and forth to all their activities, music lessons and horse riding, that sort of thing, you know, and then in the evening I supervise their homework…”</p><p>Andy paused, well aware that she was painting an unfair picture of a life, which in reality she regarded as damn near perfect.</p><p>Sheldon shook her head. “No, no, that won’t do at all. They are obviously using you as a dog’s body. With a talent like yours, everyone in the house should be looking after you, not the other way round! My darling girl, there is nothing for it. We will have to get you out of that house and give you at least six hours a day when you can focus on your craft and block out all these trivial distractions. Is there nowhere you can go, where you can write all day?”</p><p>“I have a lovely office at the top of the house, where I can look out over the New York houses, and write to my heart’s content. You mustn’t worry about me, Sheldon. I’m fine, really! It’s just that I’m a mother as well as a writer, and I don’t want to sacrifice the time I can spend with my children, especially my little one. They are young for such a short time.”</p><p>Sheldon sniffed disparagingly, and Andrea realised she was now sounding more like Cara than anyone else, defending her right to be a ‘Mom’.  Feeling the conversation was going in the wrong direction, she decided to take the chance to turn the tables and change the subject.</p><p>“I’ve been so enjoying your novels, the ones you kindly sent me. Do tell me how you got into writing that sort of book?”</p><p>Sheldon looked at her with an intense, questioning stare, softened slightly by her mouth turning up into a smile. </p><p>“That sort of book, eh?  You disapprove, obviously.”</p><p>“No, no, not at all! I’m in awe, actually. How do you come up with the plots? How do you know so much about the NYPD?”</p><p>“Honey, call it out as it is. The Stella novels are just good old-fashioned pot boilers. I studied the genre forty years ago as a cub-reporter on the NY Times, and the streets of our fair city are always swilling with enough pain and suffering to keep me in with any number of plots. I write professionally. I treat writing like I would any day-job. I put in the time, and I make a good living. But I have to keep myself, unlike you obviously, so I keep strict hours. I write for at least eight hours a day, in one form or other. Crime fiction isn’t the only genre I turn out. When we really get to know each other, I will show you some of my other work.”</p><p>Andrea flinched inside at the comment about her not ‘having’ to work. After all her earlier compliments, Sheldon sounded as though she was dismissing her as some sort of dilettante amateur.</p><p>“I know the books I write won’t be financially successful, but I do put in as much effort into them as I can, and I do want to write more, much more,” she said, trying not to sound too defensive.</p><p>“Of course, you do, and you should. I see a lot of myself in you, my dear, and I want to help you develop your own voice, not suggest you should do as I do.” </p><p>Sheldon’s tone was much softer now, as though she realized she had come over as too judgemental. </p><p> </p><p>“Do you have enough material now for your article?” asked Andrea, aware they had spent more than two hours together, and Cara was probably waiting at home for her. They had planned to visit some selected potential day-care facilities for Amelia together after lunch.</p><p>“I do. But I insist we meet again. Let me come to you next time and you can show me your attic workplace up in the clouds above the roof-tops.”</p><p>As they stood, Andy said, “That would be great. I’ll call you, when I’ve checked the timetables at home. You know, it’s great that we’re friends. Several of my best buddies have relocated and I don’t see them anymore. And Miranda is always very busy.”</p><p>Sheldon said, “I’m honoured that you call me your friend. I too, have become rather isolated, almost reclusive up here on my own. I would love it if we could become soul-mates.”</p><p>“A melding of minds maybe?”</p><p>“Exactly!”</p><p>And Sheldon drew Andrea in for a warm hug before letting her go.  “Call me, remember! Or I shall call you!”</p><p>Andrea drove home full of positive endorsement and happy vibes. But Sheldon was right. If she was going to call herself a proper writer, she had to take a much more professional approach to the whole business.</p><p> She remembered the seventeen-hour days she had worked as an assistant to Miranda, how long and hard Miranda herself still worked every day. To achieve the best, you had to make sacrifices, and Andrea decided she wanted to be the best novelist she could be.</p><p>She hoped she and Cara could find the perfect day-care for Amelia, where she would be happy and stimulated, and let her Mom work without interruption for six hours straight at least three days a week. The big scheme to create yet another baby with Miranda had temporarily flown right out of her head!</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Dear people, <br/>Tomorrow I move house. (For the nineteeth time.)  Yes, isn't it amazing I have even had the time to write another chapter?!  But for the next ten days, as BT think it is acceptable to not transfer the broadband or phone lines until March 24th, I will be incommunicado. Miranda wouldn't have stood for it, I know, but I lack her magic powers of persuasion.<br/>The good news is that between unpacking boxes, I will be writing the next half of the story, so you can get the whole package by the end of the month . How's that for a promise?    Wish me luck!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. A change of plan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The temperature in New York rises. Miranda decides to act quickly and takes the necessary steps. We will all soon be in London, folks.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi patient readers, <br/>I am safely relocated, and now am reconnected to the outside world, so this little tale can move forwards. Sorry for the gap in producing chapters, but we will see progress from now on, and the new baby (still not even conceived yet) arrive by Easter. Thanks for all your kudos and comments about Sheldon Murphy. We will find out soon whether she is a saint or sinner!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>While Andrea was having her author’s ego beguilingly massaged in Sheldon’s apartment, Miranda was squeezing in time in between meetings and page layout reviews to compose a letter to Daniel Princhek, the man who might well be her half-brother. She was finding the task problematic to say the least.</p><p>	She didn’t want to expose herself or her family to scrutiny by someone who could still turn out to be totally unrelated to her, but she felt the odds against that possibility were lengthening all the time. She had now re-read his father’s autobiography several times, and something visceral stirred in her. Increasingly she felt the writer had been trying to talk to her personally, yearning for a daughter he’d never known, had lost even before she was born. </p><p>What she needed was for Daniel and her to each take a DNA test, similar to the one she had done to test her connection to her brother Charles.  In that case they had been looking at her maternal lineage. This was to explore the paternal line. The physical, biological and genetic puzzle would then be solved. </p><p>Who knew though what psychological and emotional turmoil might emerge as a result of the answer? But she was prepared. Miranda was nothing if not courageous, despite all her phobias and barely controlled tendency to have panic attacks. “Know ye the truth and the truth shall set you free,” had always been an adage in which she had believed. She also had a secret germ of an idea about the possibilities for the future if she found she had more living male relatives. </p><p>Every time she tried to start a letter though, the words on the screen refused to look right. Her normal powers of communication seemed to have deserted her.</p><p>By noon three or four attempts had been already been deleted, when she had to leave the office to supervise another shoot, and Miranda, with her old impatient energy bubbling up again, decided to abandon the project and take a completely different approach. The book was not going to be officially published in the US for another ten days, and she didn’t want to wait that long before making personal contact.</p><p>She decided that she wouldn’t write, email or make a phone call to Daniel Princhek. She and Andrea would go straight across the Atlantic and meet the man in person, in London. And they would do it that very weekend!</p><p> </p><p>By the time she strode through her town-house front door at six that evening, all her trip arrangements had been made.  Two return flights for a five- day trip were secured, and her London cleaning service was contacted to open up and air her house up in Hampstead. </p><p> The excuse she made to anyone who needed to be told, was that her London townhouse was due an owner’s inspection. But she also wanted to surprise the London Runway staff with an unannounced visit.  The dog days of summer were a good time to pull people up and scare them out of their complacency, and she did have genuine concerns about the quality of the senior management team at British Runway.  She thought the June edition had been banal, almost to the point of boredom. </p><p>The last time she and Andy had visited England was for London fashion week back in February, four months ago. June in the British capital city would see the old town at its best, and the Heath would be looking especially lovely. Andrea would surely enjoy a surprise vacation. She spent too far long up in her attic lately, tussling with her novel-writing. </p><p>Miranda had thought for some time Andy looked ‘peaky’, the old English word she remembered from her youth. She had noticed it again when they’d gone to the park the previous Sunday, and she wanted her wife to get back her old delicious peachy bloom. </p><p>When they had first been together and Andrea was still playing softball every weekend, the girl had sported a tan which had made Miranda literally want to eat her up. Against her own carefully shielded white skin, Andy’s warmer golden tan had been a source of aesthetic pleasure which Miranda had revelled in appreciating with most of her five senses. </p><p>She loved Andrea on so many different levels, but the beauty of her young wife’s body was a secret joy which still fed her most carnal lusts. The world could enjoy Andy’s beautiful eyes, her large generous mouth and her lovely silken chestnut hair, but her naked body had a glory all its own, and Miranda jealously retained sole rights over the privilege to kiss and lick her way up and down it, back and front, inside and out. Its look, feel, taste and scent were all delicious.</p><p>She also thought Andy had lost far too much weight over the last year. She seemed to lose weight whenever a book was in the final stages as she forgot to eat lunch too often when the muse was on her. </p><p>Miranda thoroughly repented of her old obsession with skinny underweight models. Now with teenage daughters of her own she knew how destructive it could be. Observing Emily’s battle with anorexia had also taught her what an pernicious addiction extreme dieting could become. </p><p>Over the last five years Miranda had developed a definite taste for curvier hips and buttocks and breasts which swelled and bounced rather than those useless little pimples stuck on the chests of so many professional models.</p><p>It was one very selfish reason why she had especially enjoyed making love to Andy when she was pregnant, but one she made sure she kept quietly to herself. She knew Andrea was super-sensitive about being called ‘fat’, (as she’d stupidly once tagged her, in a moment of regrettable bitchiness).  Her wife would politely laugh with Nigel when he still used his old teasing nickname of ‘Six’, but Miranda knew she really didn’t enjoy it.  And she was ashamed that she had once been far guiltier than Nigel at criticising Andrea’s perfectly proportioned body.</p><p>But that was when Miranda had been trying to stop the inevitable, preventing Andrea and her falling in irrevocably in love with each other. It was her life’s most crushing defeat, and one for which she thanked God.</p><p>Nowadays she would do anything rather than hurt Andrea’s tender feelings, and the habit of being careful with her words was growing on her. If such a thing were possible, Andy had cured her of one of her favourite bad habits, insulting people just for the fun of it. Miranda Priestly, bitch extraordinaire, was in danger of turning into a kind and caring woman, well, almost!</p><p> </p><p>The enthusiastic onslaught of her youngest daughter’s welcome met her headlong in the hallway, as Amelia had heard a key turn in the lock and leapt into action, scampering down the polished wood floor towards her. </p><p>“Mommy! Mommy!” she shouted, and then wrapped herself round Miranda’s knees in a tight hug. It was wonderful to be greeted so devotedly, even if they were both in danger of falling over as a result. </p><p>Miranda still found it hard to believe she was apparently now so easy to love, even though Andy, Amelia and these days, the twins as well, continually demonstrated how much they adored her. It knocked decades off her age, and her memories of the old miserable years, of continually feeling resented and denigrated by Stephen, were fading into a distant memory.</p><p>Andy followed Amelia out of the family room and caught Miranda’s jacket and bag as she tossed them towards her. She did it just for fun these days, not like in the old days when they’d been deliberate missiles. Miranda enjoyed the cool of the air in the house against her bare arms. Andy, too, was scantily dressed, in a light voile dress which showed the outline of her legs through the skirt.</p><p>“It’s growing warmer by the hour out there on the streets. It must be in the upper nineties. Let me fix you a drink,” she said, smiling at her and safely stowing the light linen jacket in the hall closet.</p><p>Miranda replied, “I have a surprise for you. We are both going somewhere cooler tomorrow. I just need to finalise the details with Cara.”</p><p> Miranda bent down and lifted Amelia up to her chest, kissing her gently and letting the little tot wind her arms round her neck and nuzzle her cheek.</p><p>“Cara and I went nursery hunting this afternoon, and we’ve found just the right place we think. It’s in this part of Manhattan, and is run by the Montessori foundation,” said Andrea, not really hearing what Miranda was saying quietly behind her. “I am taking Amelia there on Monday for a trial session.”</p><p>“Not next Monday, I’m afraid,” said Miranda, sitting down at the kitchen table with Amelia still clinging to her like a large baby monkey. “I’m whisking you away to London from tomorrow for five days. The assistants booked our flights this afternoon.”</p><p>Cara, who was slicing tomatoes and cucumbers for a dinner salad, rolled her eyes. “Leaving me to hold the fort here as usual,” she grumbled, and looked resigned. Miranda knew very well though that Cara was pleased. </p><p>She had called her earlier to check her availability before booking up the trip. Andrea she could take for granted, but her nanny/house-manager was a different kettle of fish. Miranda had learned long ago that if you asked Cara nicely, not told her, she would always agree to any extra duties, especially if childcare was involved. </p><p>Andrea now raised her eyebrows. “So, am I the only one not to be consulted about this new plan? What about all my writing, and my plans with the twins for the weekend?” </p><p>She was fixing Miranda a Campari and Soda over ice, the slightly bitter Italian drink they both enjoyed on hot summer evenings.</p><p>Miranda stretched out her arm and pulled Andrea in close to her. “But I knew I could count on you my darling and this is definitely one trip where I do need you with me.”</p><p> She didn’t want to say more in front of Cara but felt Andy would understand. Anyway the young woman let herself be hugged and then kissed the top of Miranda’s head good humouredly in resigned acquiescence. </p><p>“Well, I’m sure you can explain your reasons to me later, my love. Now give me our child, and enjoy your drink, while I go and pop this grubby monster in the tub. You and Cara can discuss the ways and means while Amelia has a bath, and then maybe you can come up and read her a bedtime story before dinner? The twins are both working upstairs on their various projects as good as gold. Have you told them yet about this new scheme?</p><p>Miranda handed up Amelia and watched as Andrea swung the child onto her hip and waltzed out of the door. Maybe she should have consulted Andy first, but it was a great comfort to know that her wife would always want to be where she was, go where she went, accompany her anywhere, and never want to leave her unless they were absolutely forced to be apart. </p><p>It was a bedrock foundation stone of their marriage, their ongoing need to be close to each other. Miranda, who until the last five years had learned to take nothing for granted in life, rested easy in the knowledge that she came first and foremost in Andy’s entire universe, and that this would surely never change. It was a huge and affirmative joy, one she had vowed at their wedding she would do all in her power to deserve.  </p><p>Later that evening, in their bed, she held Andrea in her arms and explained why she had changed her mind about speeding up the process of meeting Daniel Princhek. </p><p>“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” asked Andrea as she lay on Miranda’s breast, and let her run her ever-restless fingers through her hair. “Are you making a giant leap into the unknown and imagine that he or one of his brothers might agree to be the sperm donor for our new baby?”</p><p>“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I know it’s a very long shot, but it could work, and it could tie up so many loose ends in my life, and for us as a family. Our new baby would have a closer biological link to Caroline and Cassie even than Amelia does, and it would knit us all together. What do you think? Would you agree to it if one of them was willing?</p><p>Miranda was very well aware that it would be Andrea’s body which would be carrying a stranger’s sperm, and growing their baby for the next forty weeks, even though raising a child would fall equally on both their shoulders.</p><p>“I would want it to be screened, just as we did for Bunny’s, and if we want to have a little brother or sister for Amelia next summer, we have to move quickly.”</p><p>“Yes, I completely understand. And I know why you want me along at this meeting. We will have to see if we like the guy, don’t we? Poor man, he has no idea what’s about to hit him. It’s a huge ask of anyone. He may even be homophobic and disapprove of same sex marriage.”</p><p>She snuggled closer and would have fallen asleep if Miranda hadn’t decided to clear up the last little business of the day, interrogating her about the interview she’d done with Sheldon Murphy.</p><p>“Tell me all about it. What was the woman like on second meeting?”</p><p>Andrea yawned. </p><p>“Oh, wonderful. We got on like a house on fire and talked for two hours, well I talked, mostly. She seemed to know more about my published novels than I did. …Oh, shoot!”</p><p>Andrea had remembered. “I promised to meet her again on Sunday afternoon. She was going to come round here. I wanted to introduce you to each other.”</p><p>“You can message her in the morning and re-schedule.”</p><p>“No, we have such an early start for the London flight, I might forget. I’ll get up and do it now.”</p><p>And Miranda felt the sudden unwelcome chill of Andrea’s delicious body abruptly jumping out of their bed and going across the room to pick up her phone and send a text to her new bestfriend. </p><p>It only took a moment, but it was a reminder that the mysterious Sheldon Murphy was already on Andy’s speed dial. Miranda decided there and then that she certainly did want to be present for their next arranged meeting. There was something about the new friendship which didn’t sit quite right with her, though she couldn’t say why. She just had a very vague feeling of protective unease, and a worry about Andrea’s tendency to like everyone too easily.</p><p>The phone pinged. The message had been sent. As Andy came back towards her, approaching the bed like a goddess in her diaphanous nightgown, Miranda gestured imperiously and said into the darkness, “Off! I want your naked body next to mine, not hidden behind a layer of lace and silk.”</p><p>And Andrea, as Miranda knew she would, willingly obeyed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Sweet Submission</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Miranda and Andrea are in London. Let's hope it's not a wild goose chase. But first they settle in, enjoy fish and chips and the cool crisp sheets on their London bed.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>London in June was as lovely as Miranda remembered it, with all the plane trees along so many roads now in full leaf and the sweet scent of lilacs and mimosa filling the air as the taxi dropped them at the kerb and she walked with Andrea up the few short steps to their pretty Victorian townhouse. She been lucky to buy this little gem in the centre of Hampstead village just at the right time back in the eighties. The property market had taken a sudden and short-lived uncharacteristic dip, and it was the best financial investment she’d ever made. </p><p>Their little street, Flask Walk, was a world away from the bleak tenements, council tower blocks and terraced housing where she’d been brought up south of the river in Lewisham, but it was still London, the London of the literati, the left-wing intellectuals, the liberal elite, who now owned property worth many millions nestling close to Hampstead Heath. </p><p>When Miranda had first brought her here Andy had marvelled at their proximity to so much open green space, and still scared her by shooting out the door to go running over Hampstead Heath whenever she had the chance.  The six- hour flight and the five-hour time difference had catapulted them into evening in London today though, and Miranda managed to dissuade Andy from going out into the summer night. </p><p>The house and small gardens had been immaculately maintained by her agents, and even the tinkling fountain in the corner water feature had been switched on for them. When they had unpacked, they sat together amid the tall blue delphiniums and tumbling white roses in the little back yard and shared a bottle of white wine as they planned their strategy for the meeting with Daniel Princhek. </p><p>“He’s the literary executor for the book, and taking charge of its marketing. I found this out from his father’s publisher yesterday, who said he’d get back to me as soon as he made contact, so all we can do tonight is wait for a message. They have my cell-phone details and the landline here. I thought if he knew I had a home in London as well as America, it might make my story seem a little more believable.”</p><p>“But if he doesn’t make contact? What will you do if he doesn’t get in touch? He could be travelling away from London, even be abroad for all we know.”</p><p>Andy sounded a sensible note of caution, but Miranda felt in her bones it would all work out fine. </p><p>“It will be OK. If we hear nothing, then we’ll go looking ourselves, use the phone book. It’s not a common name.”</p><p>“What would you like to eat for dinner? I see someone has stocked the icebox for us.”</p><p>Miranda smiled. “As I instructed. Good. But let’s take a walk up to Hampstead High Street later and go for supper at that little fish restaurant we like. Remember how I first introduced you to oysters there back in February four years ago?”</p><p>“Yes, but it’s now June. Aren’t we only supposed to eat oysters when there’s an R in the month?”</p><p>“That was in the days before refrigeration, but they always have a good fresh selection of fish and seafood, whatever the season. Can you book us in, sweetie, while I call home? Saturday night in mid-summer will probably be very busy there.” </p><p>Then Miranda opened her phone to call the twins and tell them she and Andy had had a good flight and landed safely in the UK. She also needed an update from Cara how little Amelia’s day had gone.</p><p> </p><p>Andy looked up the number for the fish restaurant so she could make a reservation for 9pm. When she opened her IPhone she saw there was a text back from Sheldon and girded her loins to receive a message expressing disappointment and regret that they couldn’t meet as quickly as planned. </p><p>If that was what Andy had expected, she wasn’t far wrong.</p><p> “Honey, I’m crushed! You don’t say where you are, or why you had to leave NY so unexpectedly. Call me as soon as you return. Of course we can and must reschedule. But make it ASAP. S.”</p><p>Andy was grateful she had only left a very general message about the need to change their meeting arrangements. Miranda certainly wouldn’t want their private business shared all round New York, but Sheldon would doubtless cross-question her about the trip when she returned. The author seemed to have an insatiable curiosity about every aspect of Andy’s life. It was flattering, but also somewhat disconcerting.</p><p>Andrea was pleased she and Miranda were definitely out as a couple, and proud to be seen at the big public events they had to attend.  But as a gay woman, Andrea always felt cautious about displaying too much about her private affairs in the social media and in print. Miranda had coached her well how to protect their privacy for the sake of their children, and always took the lead to divert attention onto herself if the mafia of the tabloids started to investigate their marriage and family life. </p><p>Andrea closed the message and then made the booking for supper, in the last sitting of the evening at 9.30pm. It would still be very early by NY time, but she guessed they would be ready to eat by the time they strolled up to the restaurant. </p><p>The food was as good as she remembered, and the owners paid them the compliment of remembering them, though to Andy that was no surprise. Once seen, Miranda was always unforgettable. She walked home with her arm tucked inside her wife’s and enjoyed looking in the quirky little shop windows along their lane, which reminded her almost of the Harry Potter locations. </p><p>“I love this part of London. I wish we had time to spend longer here.  We must make sure we come again soon, and bring all the girls next time,” she said, and then heard Miranda’s phone buzz with an incoming text.</p><p>“Do you think that might be him?”</p><p>“Let’s wait until we are home,” Miranda replied. But when they were through the red-painted front door, she pulled out her phone and flicked up the screen.</p><p>“Yes, at least it is from the publisher, with Daniel’s phone number. It is a London area code. Apparently he’s happy to talk. I’ll call him tomorrow morning. It’s too late now.”</p><p>They stood together at the foot of the stairs.</p><p>“Are you ready for bed? We have five hours still before bed-time if we are on New York time,” said Andy.</p><p>Miranda put a hand on her shoulder.</p><p>“No, we are in London, and it’s 11pm. I very much want to go to bed with you now. If we can’t sleep, you can give me a massage. I remember just how good you are at those.”</p><p>Andy chuckled and needed no further encouragement. They climbed the winding stairs together. </p><p> </p><p>Daniel Princhek had a cultured English accent and sounded perfectly civil and very interested as Miranda spoke to him on the phone the following morning. Andrea, listening on the speaker phone, was slightly amused to hear how Miranda dropped her American accent and reverted to standard English. </p><p>It wasn’t the broad Cockney from her childhood which she could turn on and off to amuse her family if needed, but good basic BBC English. Miranda had a superb ear, and if she wanted to, could also produce the tight “Princess Margaret” drawl of the British aristocracy from the era of Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter. </p><p>Miranda knew, and Andrea was learning, just how subliminally important were first impressions. Miranda wanted to communicate with as few barriers as possible to Daniel. Right now, he had no idea who or what she was, other then she was someone who thought they might share the same father. </p><p>“We should meet,” he said. “How long are you in London?”</p><p>“Until Tuesday night.”</p><p>“Then, how about this very afternoon. That would be fine for us.”</p><p>“Us? Do you have family?”</p><p>“Yes, but I thought to start with it should just be my wife and I who meet you. We don’t want too many of the others to be disappointed if it turns out we aren’t related.”</p><p>“How many siblings do you have?” asked Miranda, trying not to second guess the answer. The book had been vague about the exact number of Joseph Princhek’s children.</p><p>“There are seven of us still living. We lost a brother last year, from a heart attack.”</p><p>Miranda hid her surprise at so many.  “I am so sorry. But where should we meet?  I too will be bringing my wife, travelling from Hampstead.”</p><p>There was a pause on the phone. “Your wife? So are you a gay woman, Miranda? I took the liberty of googling you, and it simply mentioned two marriages and two children.”</p><p>Andy could tell Miranda was working hard to keep calm and not raise her voice defensively. </p><p>“That entry is very out of date. Yes, I am privileged to be married to Andrea Sachs, the novelist and we have three children.”</p><p>Well, if Daniel Princhek was a strictly practising orthodox Jew, then their chances of a happy reunion would be definitely diminished by this information, thought Andy. </p><p>But the man’s next response was neutral and pleasant enough, and he continued with his invitation to his home in Primrose Hill, which was not far at all from Hampstead. He gave the address, and an invitation for 2pm that afternoon. </p><p>“So we’re on,” confirmed Andrea as the call ended. “What shall we do in the next three hours? Would you like to take a walk across the heath with me?”</p><p>Miranda gave her an old-fashioned look, one which still had the power to send a shiver up her spine and make the hairs at the nape of her neck stand up.</p><p>“I’ve just felt a wave of jet-lag sweep over me, and you kept me awake too long last night. I think I might like to go back to bed for a couple of hours. How about that?”</p><p>Andrea stretched her arms above her head and yawned.</p><p>“You know, I suddenly feel somewhat sleepy myself. I think I’ll join you.”</p><p>And the two of them shared a wicked smile and climbed back up the stairs. </p><p> </p><p>“Set the alarm, Honey,” was one of Miranda’s last sensible sentences, and then any more words were sucked out of her mouth, by Andrea’s voracious kiss. They fell back onto the crisp white counterpane, and Miranda landed with a “Humph!” as her head hit the pillow.</p><p>She let Andrea take the lead in their love-making, as she had the previous night. It was the sweetest submission in the world, and she learned yet again, just how much her young wife truly adored her, and also how much she enjoyed role play. </p><p>When they finally slept, as they did, for an hour or more, Miranda was tied up with the soft belt from her robe, her arms pinned tight above her head and fastened to the old brass bedhead. Andy had bought it the winter before, exactly for that purpose, and it provided hours of fun. </p><p>Then at 1pm, the alarm pinged again on the phone. It would be 7am in New York, and they had just sufficient time to shower and dress, and then cross a small section of North London to meet the Princheks.  </p><p>Andrea kept Miranda waiting, naked on the bed and still under her strict control, as she went off to shower. But she returned and released her in good time to get ready.   She wasn’t an idiot. Only if you wanted to make Miranda Priestly really, really furious did you interfere with her ability to dress and apply all the make-up she felt she needed to face the world, or in this case, meet people who might be her long-lost and now rediscovered family. </p><p>Andy took outrageous liberties all the time with Miranda, ones the staff at Runway would never imagine in their wildest dreams, but even she knew there were limits. You never separated the woman from her make-up case longer than necessary. </p><p>Miranda emerged, immaculate and totally gorgeous by half past one, and they stepped together into the waiting taxi. All traces of hot and torrid sex had been wiped away, but her eyes were bright and her skin a beautiful pale pink. She let Andy open the door for her and took her seat like a Queen.</p><p>“Primrose Hill,” she said to the driver, and they sallied forth to meet their future.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm sure you'll know by now that this is the latest instalment in a series which began nineteen fics ago. It may help newer readers to understand why this meeting is going to be so important for Miranda, if you can read the story "The Making of Miranda" first. It tells the undeniably sad story of her early childhood, and explains a lot of her bad behaviour at times.  <br/>"Miranda's Enchanted April"  is another story you might like, written this time last year to counteract the lock-down with a imaginary trip to Italy for the couple, and set just around this time of year. Sophia, a character from that story will also reappear in this tale soon.  (Sorry if it sounds as though I'm giving you homework. That's not my intention, and I hope you will still be able to enjoy the story without any background reading!)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. "We are all in the theatre."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Miranda and Andrea meet the Princheks, and learn a lot.  Miranda also drops in on Runway London, where the term 'good cop, bad cop' comes to mind.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daniel’s address turned out to be a 1930s block of mansion flats, designed to sweep round a communal garden. Miranda rang the door-bell and they were welcomed in by a small woman in black with rather surprising shock of turquoise coloured hair.</p><p>	“Hi, I’m Alma, Dan’s wife. You must be Miranda, and…Andrea?”</p><p>She’d remembered them then, from the information Miranda had given to Daniel. </p><p>	Andrea smiled and took one of the hands offered to them both.</p><p>	“This is all very exciting, isn’t it?” said Alma, hanging onto Miranda’s hand. She wasn’t what you might called reserved, or stiffly British. Miranda just seemed slightly dazed and fascinated by her choice of turquoise hair. </p><p>Andrea watched as their host ushered them into a small sitting room. The decorations seemed all by the same artist and were large panels of theatrical sketches of stage sets and characters in various colour palettes. </p><p>	“Dan! Dan, it’s Miranda Priestly to see you,” Alma suddenly shouted out towards a closed door to the rear, and Daniel Princhek emerged. First impressions - he was a good ten years older than Miranda, with a lop-sided smile under a mop of grizzled grey hair, but he had twinkly eyes and a ready smile. </p><p>He looked nothing like his possible half-sister, to Andrea’s mind, except for his nose. He definitely had the same slightly long, aquiline nose as Miranda, and behind his glasses he had a similar ocular intensity. Miranda and he stared at each other, obviously silently sharing the same question in their mind.  Could they be brother and sister?</p><p>Andrea relaxed a little. Her main worry had been whether the Princheks would be hostile or mean to Miranda. She felt fiercely protective of her wife, despite knowing rationally that Miranda was usually well able to take care of herself. But her childhood traumas had always been the worst negativity in her life, and meeting the offspring of her absent father must have the potential still to hurt her. </p><p>But these were OK people. They didn’t look hostile or dangerous. It was a good start. </p><p>They were invited to sit down, and Alma announced she was going off to bring them in the proverbial British cup of tea, while Daniel and Miranda exchanged what they knew. </p><p>Daniel filled in some interesting gaps in what Joseph’s autobiography had told them. </p><p>“It was in 1954. I was nine, going on ten at the time, and I well remember hearing my parents rowing about something major which had happened. I was the eldest and my two younger brothers and I were sent off to our grandparents for the school holidays. My mother was pregnant at the time, with the fourth son.  </p><p>“In early September we returned, and everything seemed calm. Dad went back to teaching, and then in October Reuben was born. But Dad went in on himself, became distant somehow.. He didn’t even play his violin for months. I don’t think my parents’ marriage was ever quite the same again. When was your birthday, Miranda?”</p><p>“January twenty-second, Nineteen fifty-five.” </p><p>“So, in the previous July, maybe your mother had just discovered she was expecting, and told my father? That’s when it might all have come out.”</p><p>“I never knew the name of the school where she worked. My grandmother never said. I only ever met her once, when I was sixteen, and she said some Jewish people had come looking for my mother and me some years before.”</p><p>“Yes, that rings very true. When I was twenty, in Nineteen sixty-five, my father said he wanted to look up someone he had once hurt very badly, and he took me along, to a house in the east end, Dalston way. There was an old Irish woman living there but she would hardly give us the time of day, more or less slammed the door in our face. She said her daughter had married and been killed in a traffic accident seven years previously. She wouldn’t give out any more information.”</p><p>Andrea felt Miranda’s body  stiffen beside her. Then this had to be true. This had to be the missing link with her father. Miranda must have been remembering the appalling cruelty she’d suffered right up to her tenth year, and how her grandmother might have sent some relief, if only she hadn’t been so unyielding, and probably antisemitic.</p><p>Miranda spoke carefully. “This ties in exactly with what I remember of my childhood. Would you agree to a DNA test to confirm our relationship?”</p><p>Daniel nodded, just as Alma came back with a tray of tea-things. “Yes, of course.”</p><p>“I would like to keep it strictly confidential, however. I have my children to consider…”</p><p>“Naturally. I feel the same,” replied Daniel at once. “But it could result in a real healing for our family. All of us feel it, and Dad’s book revealed just how painful it was for him, all these years, losing a child he’d fathered. He never knew whether it was a boy or a girl, either. It is truly sad he’s no longer here to meet you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Tell me about your brothers and sisters said Miranda, taking the cup of tea she’d been passed. Andrea could see a very slight tremor to her hand, and knew she was under great tension. Learning about half of your family was a huge event in anyone’s calendar.</p><p>“There were eight of us originally. My maternal grandfather was determined his daughters should have as large a family as possible to make up for the devastating losses suffered under the holocaust. So mother had eight children, and my aunt had seven. But our generation, we have all made our own decisions. I had five brothers and two sisters, and all except Reuben are living. I’m the eldest, then Susanna, then David, Ben, Matt, Stephen and Charlie.”</p><p>It was all rather bewildering. Miranda seemed stunned into silence again, and Andrea asked, for them both, “But you mentioned two sisters…?”</p><p>“He did,” chipped in Alma. “Charlie, or Charlotte, - she’s the youngest.”</p><p>“And what do you all do? We’d be very interested to know.”</p><p>“We’re all in the theatre business. I’m a set designer, as you might have guessed from the pictures up on the walls in here. Susanna is a writer, David and Ben run a production company, Matt is an actor, Stephen is a script writer, and Charlie is a stand-up comic.”</p><p>Alma said proudly, “Dan is brilliant at his job. He has been nominated for an academy award and won two Baftas in his time. I met him on the set of a National Theatre production back in 1978.  I’m a costume designer.” </p><p>“Wow, what a creative team!” said Andrea.</p><p>“Well, like Miranda here. Don’t you edit American Runway?”</p><p>Alma turned to Miranda and smiled. </p><p>“She’s actually Editor in Chief, and global artistic director of all the Runway magazines,” said Andrea, proudly. </p><p>“And you’re a novelist, isn’t that right?”</p><p>“Well, I’m just starting out. I’ve just published my second.”</p><p>“How did you two meet up though?”</p><p>Andrea could feel Alma’s curiosity about the obvious age-gap between her and Miranda. She blushed slightly. </p><p>“I married my boss. She said I was the biggest ignoramus ever to apply for a position at Runway and had to find something else for me to do. I’m a lost cause when it comes to fashion, I’m afraid.”</p><p>“Not true at all. You were a lovely assistant and you learned fast. Even if you couldn’t  even spell Dolce or Gabbana when you first arrived.”</p><p>Miranda had spoken for the first time in several minutes. It seemed the need to defend Andrea over-ruled her shock at learning all about the plethora of new brothers and sisters. </p><p>“We are going to pay a surprise visit to the British Runway offices tomorrow,” said Andrea. “We are mixing business with pleasure.”</p><p>“But we must make time to organise a DNA test,” said Miranda. </p><p>“I will set it up. I have several doctor friends who can do it,” said Daniel. Then before we do anything else, we can conclusively prove our relationship.” </p><p>Their first meeting carried on in a similarly positive way. Dan and Alma talked about their two children, now grown and working away from home, and about the offspring of the other siblings. </p><p>“Are they all married?” asked Andrea, reminded that she was still in need of a sperm donor, and there seemed more than enough possible candidates within this family. </p><p>“Variously married, divorced and remarried, and divorced again in some cases. All except Charlie, but we hope she will as well, one day, when her partner’s parents are finally made aware and adjust to the idea.”</p><p>“Oh, is there a problem?”</p><p>“Not to our family. But Charlie is lesbian. Her partner Caroline used to be a presenter on TV here in the UK. She is from a Uganda Asian family, Hindu. Her parents are very conservative.</p><p>“Charlie and Caroline have been together eight years, but they have never told Caroline’s parents about it. It is very hard, you know, when parents won‘t understand or accept.”</p><p>Miranda nodded, and said, “I’m in no position to judge. I really knew from my early twenties about my own sexuality, but it took two marriages and falling in love with Andrea here, before I came out to the world. I’m just very lucky with all my in-laws, and my children. I have two fifteen-year-old daughters, twins, from my first marriage and Andy and I have a little daughter Amelia between us. My cousin from my mother’s side was our donor.”</p><p>It was the longest contribution to the conversation she had made so far, and Andrea could see how she was working slowly round to the idea of applying to the Princhek brothers for a similar intimate favour. </p><p> </p><p>“How lovely!” responded Alma. “What a sweet way round the problem. It’s such a shame Dan and his brothers can’t do the same, if you ever needed similar help. They all had the snip done together a few years back, after they’d completed their families. </p><p>“Grandfather Joe and Granny Irma were horrified but the brothers all made the decision together! They reckoned with more than thirty children between them, there were more than enough Princhek offspring in the world!”</p><p>“Oh, right,” said Miranda. “Quite.”</p><p> “Probably a very sensible move,” added Andrea. “I understand.” </p><p>And the conversation continued very pleasantly until they said good-bye and a taxi was called to transport them home. </p><p>“Well,” said Andy, once they were once again in the privacy of their own house.  “What did you think of your new brother and family? Bit of a downer though, when Alma told us. What a bombshell about the mass vasectomy they all went through!”</p><p>“Too much information, perhaps,” said Miranda. “But at least it has removed any hopes we had in that direction and prevented the need for embarrassing requests. I’m just so sorry, my love, for your sake. We must go back to the beginning on solving that problem and think again.”</p><p>“Yes, we will. But weren’t Dan and Alma friendly? I also liked what we heard about the family. They all sound artistic and talented, and nice.” </p><p>“Yes.  I can’t imagine where I inherited my acid tongue, as both sides of my family seem mostly full of bonhomie.  It must have been from the old witch, my mother’s mother.” </p><p>“I’d like to meet Charlie especially,” said Andy, steering her away from such negative thoughts. </p><p>“And I expect we will, soon enough,” said Miranda. “I expect we will.”</p><p>The following morning, bright and early Miranda bustled her along like an attentive young assistant and marched them both through the main doors of Runway in London. Andrea was amused and sympathetic as she saw the sudden panicked look on the receptionists’ faces as Miranda sailed in and told them she was here to see the editor-in-chief.</p><p>“Is he expecting you?” quavered girl number one. Andrea suspected she’d have pressed a panic button if one existed.</p><p> </p><p>“Only if he has extra-sensory perception. Don’t worry, I know the way up,” and Miranda was already halfway towards the elevator. She called over her shoulder.  “But you might tell the Art director I wish to see her as well, on the hour, ten o’clock sharp.”</p><p>Andrea gave the receptionist duo a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. We know Emily very well. She’s used to Miranda.”</p><p>The girls looked astonished that anyone could ‘get used’ to Miranda Priestly, who was now impatiently holding the elevator for Andrea. </p><p>“Come! We haven’t got all day!” she said, and Andy ran to catch the door before it closed. </p><p>As the elevator rose, she teasingly squeezed Miranda’s hand and bit her ear, hard.</p><p>“Ow! What was that for, Miss?”</p><p>“Punishment for all those elevator trips I took cowering in the corner beside you in New York, in peril of losing my immortal soul. Don’t think I’ve forgotten how sadistic you were. And here you are, playing the same games in London. Are you really going to be beastly to Emily?”</p><p>“Isn’t it her role to supervise the layouts? Or am I mistaken?”</p><p>“She’s only been here a few months. The June edition wasn’t her fault, surely.”</p><p>“Hmm. We’ll see,” was all Miranda would promise. “I am in no mood for more disappointments on this trip.”</p><p>Andrea hugged her and kissed her ear better. “Just remember how much I love you, whatever else happens. No need to feel really disappointed.”</p><p>“There is that, I suppose,” said Miranda sniffing and looking  at her sideways with an ironic little lift of her mouth. </p><p>“Just keep reminding me, please. Otherwise, Runway London may see some heads roll before the end of this morning.”</p><p>And the lift doors opened onto the Editor’s suite. Andrea could already see people fleeing in all directions. Word had obviously travelled up here faster than they had. </p><p>“Let the fun begin,” she thought, and followed her wife out through the doors and down the corridor.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Well, that was a surprise!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Miranda and Andrea meet old friends and a new relation. It's all go in London right now.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Andy’s tolerance for cruelty to vulnerable adults wasn’t high. When she saw the mischievous little smile come onto Miranda’s face as they went into the editor’s office, she decided she would leave her well on her own, and instead go off to forewarn Emily. </p><p>She hadn’t heard from her or Serena for three months, when they had moved to London, and this was a chance for a good natter as well as a briefing meeting about Miranda’s state of mind. </p><p>Miranda did look startled when she heard her whisper, “I’ll be downstairs with Emily. See you later!”</p><p>But her wife was a big girl and certainly didn’t need Andy hanging around to witness the “How badly do you want to keep your job?” interview she was about to hold with the British Editor-in-Chief.  </p><p>Emily looked up at Andy with stricken eyes as she swung round the door of the art department to greet her.</p><p>“Why didn’t you bloody warn me?” she hissed. “Some friend!”</p><p>“Oh, pooh,” said Andy. “Keep your hair on. I only knew a couple of days ago that we were coming to London at all. And you know you are more than a match for Miranda.  She’s just worried about the quality of the June edition, and I told her you can have hardly any input into that one. It must have already gone through the proofs stage before you arrived over here.”</p><p>“Yes, but we both know M uses assault weapons, sprays everyone in sight with automatic gunfire. She’s not exactly discriminatory when she’s on the warpath.”</p><p>“Well, don’t worry. If she opens fire, I will step in front of you and lay down my life. But by the time she gets here, I think she’ll have had all the fun she needs for one morning, shredding your new boss. How’s it all going anyway? How is Seri as well? Is she enjoying the Tatler?”</p><p>Serena was now Beauty Director for the up-market Society magazine, and they had moved to a chic little flat in North Islington. Emily looked well, four years after she had shared a triple wedding-day with Andy, and Miranda, and with Andy’s sister Hannah and her fiancé Harry. (who also happened to be Miranda’s nephew.)*</p><p>“We’re good. All good. Although if you can believe it, I really miss the old dragon. I quite envy you being the brunt of all those sarcastic put-downs.”</p><p>Andy sat on the corner of Emily’s desk and swung her legs.</p><p>“You know it’s not like that between Miri and me. Not seriously anyway. But we are only here for one more evening, and I wondered if you and Seri would like to come round for supper. Say around Eight? We’d both love to see you.”</p><p>“Does this come from Miranda?” Emily sounded cautious.</p><p>“No, but she’ll be very happy. No worries on that score.”</p><p>“Well, I would love to catch up with you, and I’ve never seen your London house. So yes, tell me your address and let’s do it. I call Seri now and make sure she can come too. We haven’t any plans, as far as I know.”</p><p>Then the pair of them chatted happily for the next twenty minutes, like the old sparring partners they were, and Emily stopped agitating about what to say to Miranda. Not that it would matter much anyway. With Miranda, you never answered back, or tried to make excuses. You simply had to wait for the tide to turn and the Atlantic ocean of criticism to calm down. </p><p> </p><p>Miranda arrived on the dot of 9.45 for their 10 o’clock appointment, and Andy was very proud of her as she swept in like Boadicea, looking good enough to eat as always, with a deliciously irritable frown across her face, above the clattering of her high heels. </p><p>Emily leapt to her feet and came out from behind her desk, only to find Miranda grasping her shoulders and kissing her on each pink cheek, properly kissing her, not the phoney air kisses of old. </p><p>Miranda was feeling her shoulder blades to see how much flesh was on them. </p><p>“Good, Emily.  You are eating OK at least. I was worried you might be sinking into a decline again under the burden of the mediocrity evident in this establishment.”</p><p>Emily received the kisses, and then gave Miranda a tight, body to body hug, astonishing all three of them by her temerity. </p><p>She said, “It’s not so bad. There are some talented folk hanging around in the corners. But of course it’s nothing like New York. I do miss working for you, Miranda. I guess I always will. This visit is a lovely surprise.”</p><p> </p><p>Miranda couldn’t very well throw insults all over her after that, and Andy saw how much more self-confident Emily had become, and how easily Miranda was softened up as a result.</p><p>“Did you have a good meeting with Frank?” she asked, relieved Miranda's elegant dress showed no signs of gun-shot residue or blood stains.</p><p>“I think so.  At least he is going to pull his hand-made socks up. I’ve told him he’s on probation until the end of this year and must show me every edition well before it goes to print. He wasn’t happy, but he agreed. As so he should. He should be thankful he still has a job at all.” </p><p>“I’ve asked Em and Seri round for supper tonight. That’s OK with you, isn’t it?” asked Andy, changing the subject. She didn’t want Miranda moaning on and on about how inadequate the British Runway editorial team were.</p><p>“I think we could bear it,” said Miranda dryly, but her smile signalled a full agreement. </p><p>“Won’t you take a seat Miranda?” then asked Emily, pulling one towards her, and they all sat down for a much more positive session than the one Miranda had had upstairs. She wanted to know all about how Emily’s new post was suiting her talents, what were the positives and negatives she saw, and how she could advise her in the running of her new team.  </p><p> </p><p>It was back at their townhouse, at the beginning of the long English summer evening, when the real drama of the day unfolded for Andrea and Miranda. Miranda had her feet up on the sofa, reading the Guardian, the only liberal broadsheet newspaper in the UK, and enjoying a long Gin and Tonic. Andy was pottering about setting the table for supper. It was all ready and waiting – Chicken Veronique and asparagus spears - and she was just wondering about pouring a drink for herself when the doorbell rang, noisily and insistently. </p><p>“I’ll get it,” she called to Miranda, and went to open their front door. </p><p>“Darling! Hello! You must be Andrea. I couldn’t bear to wait any longer. I had to come over! I am so excited – you’ve no idea.”</p><p>The woman on the doorstep rushed forward and gave Andrea a huge hug. She was a pretty hefty female so this was an extremely physical experience.</p><p>“You’re…?”</p><p>“Charlie, of course! The fat one in the family. Where is she, my wonderful big sister? I must see if her pictures do her justice…”</p><p>And Charlotte, or Charlie, Princhek pushed past Andrea so enthusiastically there was no arguing with her. She ran into their open-plan sitting room and flung herself on top of Miranda. The Guardian, and Miranda’s glasses, both went flying as she landed. </p><p>Charlie wasn’t any taller than Miranda, but she was almost totally spherical, and her ‘look’ was wildly bohemian, with  a few brightly coloured tunics worn in layers over her ample curves above purple tights and violet coloured Doc Martins. She had curly dark red hair tied up under a velvet headband. She was probably in her mid-forties, but it was hard to say. Her personality was so over-riding, all other details seemed secondary.</p><p>Andrea couldn’t help giggling at the sight of her wife buried under this purple tinged apparition. Miranda was valiantly trying to surface out of the sea of enthusiastic affection, until Charlie finally realised that death by squashing was probably not the fate she wanted for her new sister. </p><p>She pulled back a little, but then took Miranda’s face between her hands and held her captive as she examined her features intently and said,“Oh, oh, you are so lovely. I knew you would be. I’ve watched you on YouTube so many times since Dan told me about you, but none of the footage does you justice. Please, please say you don’t have any other sisters! I want to be the only one! I have always wanted a proper sister, and to know that you’re gay as well! This is all too wonderful.”</p><p>Miranda made a little strangled noise as she looked sideways at Andy with a wild eye. She obviously needed rescuing.</p><p>“Let Miranda go,” said Andy briskly, pulling Charlie gently backwards. “We don’t want to give her a panic attack. It’s lovely to meet you of course, but let’s sit down quietly and talk like sensible adults. We haven’t even proved yet that you are sisters, have we? The tests won’t come back till tomorrow.”</p><p>“Oh we are, we are. I know it in my bones. But you’re right. I’m sorry if my feelings ran away with me. It’s such an amazingly sad and meaningful story though, isn’t it? My poor old dad, and the suffering he must have caused you by seducing your mother, poor Miranda.”</p><p>Miranda, once her cheeks were released, could now breathe again, and managed to respond in a couple of full coherent sentences.</p><p>“But he gave me life. If it wasn’t for their affair I wouldn’t be here. And I am a happy, happy woman, Charlie, believe me. It has taken me fifty years to achieve it, but you must know, I am possibly the happiest woman on the planet.”</p><p>“Because of Andrea?”</p><p>“Yes. Because of Andrea, and our three lovely children.”</p><p>Charlie showed great restraint and sat back on the sofa, even though it was obvious she wanted to caress Miranda like a new pet. She was one of the most tactile, extrovert women Andy had ever met, and if she’d lost fifty pounds she would have been very good looking. Andy realized she was falling into the trap of being sizeist by even thinking that, and re-phrased her thoughts. Charlie was very, very cuddly, yes, that was a better description! </p><p>Charlie said “I have no children. It is a great sorrow. The love of my life is a beautiful woman who works in the media, rather like you, and she doesn’t want them, so I have to respect her wishes. And she wouldn’t want me to get pregnant either, not through a sperm donor.”</p><p>“Would you like a drink?” asked Andy, feeling they should offer some hospitality to her new sister-in-law.</p><p>“Thanks, I’m parched. Any diet-coke?”</p><p>“No, sorry, but I can fix you a weak G and T, or just Tonic and ice, if you don’t drink alcohol.”</p><p>“No, a stiff Gin would be fine. We have so much to talk about that I don’t know where to start.”</p><p>“You said you didn’t have a sister. But surely you do, - don’t you have an elder sister Susanna?” asked Miranda while Andrea went off to fix the drink.</p><p>“I do, and I don’t. She’s twenty years older than me and left home after a huge row before I was even born. I’m the youngest, you see. So I never knew her, and she’s never been reconciled to the family. It’s very sad. She lives abroad, in Australia I believe. So my father lost two of his children, not just one.”</p><p>“That’s very sad,” said Miranda, sipping her own Gin and tonic, and absorbing the larger-than-life personality of her “little” sister. “Were you close to our father? Can you tell me what he was really like?”</p><p>“Of course I can. I could talk to you all night, but unfortunately right now  I can’t stay much longer. I have to go to work. I’m on stage tonight. I just wanted to meet you, even just to say Hello.”</p><p>“And we leave for New York again tomorrow lunch time. We’d have come to see your act, but we are expecting friends for dinner.”</p><p>Andy was a little surprised at the genuine regret in Miranda’s voice. She chipped in, “Yes, we have to get back to the States, but we will definitely come back soon.”</p><p>In her mind she was already planning a return trip in a week or two, when she had already planned to whisk Miranda away from work. </p><p>“Will you be here from July 5th onwards?”</p><p>“Why yes!”</p><p>“What’s all this?” asked Miranda rather sharply, as it was the first she’d heard of the plan.</p><p>“I’ll tell you later my love,” said Andy. “Don’t worry. But I’ve arranged for you to have some time off while the twins are in their summer camps, so Amelia can come back with us to London.” </p><p>Charlie swallowed her gin in one long draught, and stood up. “Let’s meet again then and spend all the time we need, getting to know each other. I love you already, both of you. This is one of the most exciting days of my entire life.”</p><p>Miranda had stood as well, and was once again enveloped in the warmest and most physical of embraces, her face pressed against Charlie’s cheeks, and her breasts flattened against the woman’s unsupported bosom.</p><p>Andy moved them both towards the front door and opened it to let Charlie leave. But on the doorstep they nearly tumbled into the arms of Emily and Serena who had just walked down from the Hampstead underground station and were coming up the front steps. </p><p>Charlie gave Miranda one last wet and sloppy kiss and beamed at the new arrivals as she went past them. </p><p>“Sorry ladies! Gotta dash!”</p><p>Andrea was concerned to see her heading towards a very small Fiat parked up on the sidewalk outside, and wished she hadn’t made Charlie quite such a stiff drink earlier. </p><p>They all watched as she roared away down the lane.</p><p>“Wow!” said Serena. “How do you know her?”</p><p>“She’s my long-lost sister,” said Miranda, sounding very low key and subdued, as though she couldn’t believe it herself.</p><p>“The hell she is! You’ve got to be kidding!” said Emily. “That’s Charlie- Bee, the leading Lesbian comedienne in the UK. She is on every games panel, every late-night chat-show. Her live shows are always sell-outs. Miranda, she’s just about the funniest woman in England, and she’s your sister?! My God, I will never, never cease to be amazed by you.  And you never knew?”</p><p>“No, I never knew. But I do now. Come inside and tell me all about her over dinner. Andy’s done her chicken and green grape thing, and I know you’ll both love it. She’s such a good cook.”</p><p>And they all went into the pretty little house together.<br/>

* As explained in 'The Spirit of Christmas', 'Miranda's Birthday', and in 'Miranda's Wedding'.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Trans-atlantic lifestyles.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Everybody, including Sheldon, is happy they're home. Miranda and Andrea return to New York.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chapter 14.</p><p>	Miranda lay awake in the small hours next to the placidly sleeping form of her beautiful wife and tried to stop analysing how she felt about her ‘new’ sister.  Several hours after Charlie’s whirlwind visit, Miranda still felt like a daisy on a lawn which had been flattened by a heavy roller. Not many people, in fact no-one in the world, had ever done that to her before, and she was completely overwhelmed.</p><p>Charlie and she were certainly different, that was for sure! But they were so different in fact that Miranda could see how they might fit together like opposing jig-saw pieces. All her Ins were Charlie’s Outs. She realised this, even on their first astonishing meeting.</p><p>	Where Miranda had deeply introverted tendencies beneath her public persona and found it almost impossible sometimes to express her true feelings, even to her nearest and dearest, Charlie was totally out there, without hesitation or fear of failure. She was astoundingly open.</p><p>Where Miranda was intensely self-conscious about her own appearance, building at least an hour into each day to maintain her facade of perfection, it was evident Charlie dressed simply to express herself and amuse others. She hadn’t even bothered with any make-up neither. Looking at her shape, she was obviously a carboholic, but she didn’t seem to care, and it certainly hadn’t harmed her career. </p><p>	At dinner, Emily had brought up some You-Tube footage of Charlie-Bee’s performance on stage on her phone, to show Miranda and Andy. The woman had filled the Albert Hall, for goodness’ sake! She was a legend in the UK, and there were some fleeting images of her partner as well, an exquisitely good-looking slim Asian princess, who flashed dark eyes almost equalling the brilliance and size of Andy’s.</p><p>	But it was Charlie’s massive affection and physical outreach to a woman she had hardly heard about a few days before, which touched Miranda on a level so deep it quite unnerved her. She had almost been swallowed up by sisterly love, and the need the woman had to touch and hold, to feel and kiss her.</p><p>This was a love quite different from the way Andrea worshipped and also commanded her. Her wife could turn her simultaneously into both a quivering deity and a slave to her own libido.  Their mutual passion was sexual, unique and devotional.  But this was different. This was family love, from a sister. </p><p>Miranda had never had a sister. Her knowledge of ‘sisterly affection’ came mainly from the books of Jane Austen. The nearest equivalent had been love from Andy’s mother, Jenny, whom Miranda genuinely adored, but this was something else again. Charlie was young still, maybe twelve or thirteen years younger than her, and completely upfront and fearless. </p><p>She felt again the impact of that ‘death by squashing’ first embrace, the physicality of it, and the fact that Charlie obviously had no knowledge whatsoever of her reputation in New York as an untouchable, the frostiest of snow-queens.  And in the dark, the little girl who had once been Miranda, enduring eight years from age three to eleven without a single kiss, or any hugs, only beatings, being kicked out onto the back yard or being thrown down the cellar steps to spend hours alone in the darkness, came back into her and she felt tears of happiness roll down her cheeks as she relived that astonishing hug, her sister’s kisses and the way she had pulled her into her chest. </p><p>Miranda squinted at the clock. 1am, and they had a flight back to New York to face twelve hours later. She needed to sleep. But as she rolled over and put her arm gently round Andy’s waist, to nestle in behind her, she decided Charlie coming into her life would be a good thing, yes, a very, very good thing. And if there was more hugging and sloppy kissing, then she wouldn’t mind at all.  And with that thought, Miranda fell asleep at once, and didn’t wake for another seven hours.  </p><p>When they arrived home in Manhattan much later the same day, and did the jumping back five hours thing, the whole family, even Pumpkin and Tilly, all seemed ecstatic to see them. Miranda was tired, definitely, as she found it very hard to sleep on flights, but she was also buoyed up by the loving endorsement of the Princheks she’d met so far, and the absolute proof which had come through in the DNA tests, that she was indeed who she had thought she was, their lost half-sister, and the child of Joseph Princhek, 1922-2009. </p><p>When Cara had gone home, and Amelia was finally settled down to sleep clutching her beloved Big Bunny, and small mouse, Miranda sat down on the sofa between her twins and told them all about the real reason for her visit to London.</p><p>“You sneaky thing,” said Caroline, nestling into the crook of her arm and putting her head against her mother. “So it wasn’t just for work? You’ve found us yet more relations? Honestly, we’ll have to start writing Christmas cards in October at this rate!”</p><p>“Are they nice?” asked Cassidy, more to the point as usual. “Will we like them? Are there any cousins our age?”</p><p>“I’m sure there are. The brothers have thirty children between them. But I’m only just getting my head around them all. Andy and I are returning after Independence Day with Amelia as well for another visit, and I’ll know more then.”</p><p>“And they all belong to your father’s side of the family. But how did you find out? You have never even mentioned him before.”</p><p>“I know. I knew so little about him, only his name, and the fact that he dumped my mother. But he wrote a book and told the whole story. You can read it yourselves, if you like. I wouldn’t stop you.”</p><p>“Maybe later,” yawned Caroline. “I’m up to my ears with learning the music camp repertoire right now. We’re doing some seriously difficult stuff, Sibelius’s 5th for example, which has masses of exposed cello in it.”</p><p>“And I’m prepping for space camp,” said Cassie. “Show us later, when we get home, Mommy, and we’ll be all for it. I just want to be sure you’re happy, Mom, that these new relations won’t upset you.”</p><p>Miranda was touched by how caring her children had become, how sensitive to her feelings, rather than obsessed with their own, in recent years. She knew how much this was down to Andrea’s mentoring and guidance, and yet again thanked the universe for sending that bright angel into their lives. </p><p>“No, sweeties, they won’t upset me. I’m very happy with how the trip went, and we’ll certainly all know more after our next visit.”</p><p>“Andy will look after you,” said Cassie, giving a gusty sigh. “That’s a great comfort to me, that you’re under her management.”</p><p>And Miranda laughed and laughed. The teenager didn’t lie. More and more these days, Miranda did indeed feel under Andy’s management, and it gave her a warm feeling of loving and positive security. </p><p> </p><p>Andy, meanwhile, was talking to Sheldon on the phone up in her office.<br/>
“It was just a business trip,” she lied when Sheldon wanted to know where she’d been. “Miranda needed me with her, that was all. But we are home now and I have the rest of this week free if you’d like to meet up.”</p><p>“Honey, of course I’d like to meet. But let’s do it outside your family home, so we’re not interrupted with screaming children. How about the Metropolitan Museum first floor café?”</p><p>“My children don’t scream,” retorted Andy, conveniently forgetting the decibels Amelia could produce on occasion, “But that’s fine if you prefer. How about coffee, tomorrow at eleven?”</p><p>“Great. And I’ll bring you up to speed with how the interview article has gone. I’ll email it over before we meet.”</p><p>“Thanks. See you tomorrow!”</p><p>Andy was happy to turn back to matters pertaining to her own career. She had a possible scheme for her next novel sketched out over a number of different documents and settled down for a couple of hours merging them together and doing some concentrated writing. </p><p>When Miranda came to urge her into bed, she looked up apologetically as she realised how the time had shot by. </p><p>“Sorry, darling. This jet-lag/time difference is playing havoc with my circadian rhythms. I’m not sure if I’m awake or asleep anymore.”</p><p>“If you’re busy writing. I don’t want to disturb you,” said Miranda, secretly hoping Andy would be sufficiently disturbed to come to play bedroom games with her. </p><p>“No worries, I’m happy to be disturbed. Fancy a smooch in the hot tub?”</p><p>Miranda thought she’d never heard such a sweet invitation, even though it would be four am by now in London, and her eyelids felt very heavy. This trans-Atlantic lifestyle was certainly strenuous. </p><p>But Andrea held out her hand, and Miranda took it.  She decided again the truth of what she had said to Charlie in London, that she definitely was the happiest woman in the world, by far.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. In the wee small  hours of the morning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Andy meets up with Sheldon and has fun. Miranda reads one of Sheldon's books, and doesn't.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“There you are!”  </p><p>Andy walked across the crowded coffee-shop to the figure she had glimpsed, and smiled as she greeted Sheldon. The woman’s glasses were balanced on top of her mop of curly hair and she was furiously typing away on a small notebook laptop.  Two tall cappuccino glasses were already on the table, one coffee already drunk and the other one sheltered under a lid to keep it hot.  </p><p>Sheldon jumped up and hugged her. “I ordered for us both when the line at the counter was shorter. Here, have yours. I remember how you like your coffee.”</p><p>Andy sat down with a “Hmmph” of relief. </p><p>“Thanks, am I late? I’m real sorry if I am.”</p><p>“No, I always get to places early. My inner clock seems to run fast fifteen minutes. President Obama says he lives by the same rule.”</p><p>“As does Miranda,” smiled Andy, and she removed the lid on her coffee and took a sip. “Great. This tastes great. Just the right temp.”</p><p>“How is your celebrity wife doing? Did she finish her urgent business which whisked you away so suddenly?”</p><p>Andy remembered her little white lie about their trip.</p><p>“Oh sure. It was great, except that we will have to go away again next week, after Independence Day, just to settle things down and sort out stuff.”</p><p>“Stuff?” Sheldon cocked an eyebrow, and Andy felt scrutinised. Sheldon, like Miranda had done so often, was upbraiding her like her Junior High English teacher. She stood corrected and grinned apologetically. </p><p>“Sorry. I hope I write with better vocabulary than I speak.  If you’re interested, I have brought along a draft of my possible next novel. I’d value your feedback.”</p><p>“Of course. I’d be honored. And have you had a chance to read up my interview?”</p><p>“Only very quickly. I’m so sorry. I am starting my two-year-old daughter  at a nursery three mornings a week, and today was her first day, so I had to take her.”</p><p>“Not Miranda’s responsibility then?”</p><p>The question was put mildly enough, but Andrea wanted to defend her incredibly hard-working wife. </p><p>“No, Miranda puts in regular twelve hour shifts at Runway.  She scarcely has time to breathe during the week. Cara, -she’s our Nanny, - and I took Amelia along to the nursery, and Cara will collect her at Noon. Which is why I am free to meet you and indulge in some adult conversations with someone unencumbered with family, and screaming children, as you put it. You live alone, so you may not realise what a luxury this is.”</p><p>Sheldon obviously heard everything Andy was saying and not saying in this mild rebuke and seemed to choose her next words carefully.</p><p>“Yes, I live alone, by choice. I am alone as well, emotionally, and I prefer it that way.  But it wasn’t always so. By the time you reach my age, darling Andrea, you will realise that some choices you make when young have far-reaching repercussions, but also there are some things which happen to you over which you have no control. And these can change your life equally profoundly.”</p><p>“But… but you are happy? You seem very fulfilled in what you do.”</p><p>“I am fulfilled. But I am also driven. I think to produce anything of quality, you need to have a streak of perfectionism. And that means making choices. You can’t have everything in life, Andrea.”</p><p>“I agree, but surely you can balance home and family and work, and still make a good job of both. I hope so anyway.”</p><p>“Why don’t you ask your wife about that, and see what she says, hmm? But let’s talk about the matter in hand. What I’m really interested in is your talent and how to nurture it.”</p><p>Sheldon finished her coffee, and then swung round her laptop so Andy could see the screen. She moved her chair round their little table as well, so they could both read the words she’d written together.</p><p>“Let’s go through the interview together, if you had insufficient time before. I don’t want to publish anything you’d be unhappy with.”</p><p>	Andy read it through again, guided by Sheldon’s arm over her shoulder, her finger working the mouse.  It was a very positive and well-written article. Of that Andy had no doubt. And she was genuinely flattered and buoyed up by the proof that this experienced and wide-ranging professional columnist and novelist thought so highly of her. </p><p>	Sheldon was just what she needed in her life as a younger writer, a mentor and coach who would also keep up her up to mark, and not let her get too distracted. They got along like a house on fire, and Andrea hardly noticed an hour pass.</p><p>	“Thank you so much,” she enthused. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you giving up your time for me. Will you please read my draft of the next novel and give me some feedback?”</p><p>	“I don’t want to critique the bones of your story too much. It is a common fault with writers that we often talk out our books too much until there is no story left inside us. But what I can do is give you a structure for writing, give you my experience on sticking to a time-plan.”</p><p>	“How many books do you publish a year?”</p><p>	“Never less than four. But quantity doesn’t always equate to quality. I’m not saying you have to write like that. But you must write every day, just like your Miranda goes to her office every day, and makes other people work round her schedule, to get the job done. You have to be more self-centred Andy, not dissipate your energies. Get your priorities straight.”</p><p>	“Yes, I suppose so.  I’ll try. So when shall we meet again in person, or should we just keep it online for a while? I understand you’re busy, but I know Miranda wants to meet you.”</p><p>	Sheldon gave a little snort. “Wants to check me out, you mean?”</p><p>	“No! It was Miranda reading your review of Joseph Princhek’s book, which set up our whole friendship. You’ve got her all wrong if you think she doesn’t support my writing.”</p><p>	“Possibly. Very well. Choose a time and a place and I will be there, I promise. My life seems much simpler than yours.”</p><p>	And they kissed and parted. There was something pleasant about having Sheldon as a friend of her own, Andy thought as she made her way across Manhattan to get home.</p><p> Apart from the Runway crowd, now dispersed, and Lily in New Zealand, she realised how few close friends she had. It was true that Miranda and the twins had absorbed all her time and most of her love and affection in recent years.</p><p> She was still close to her two sisters, of course, and Andy resolved to call Hannah that very evening and make a date to catch up. Months flew by without time for a meeting, and now that Johnny no longer came to their house every day, she hadn’t seen Hannah in several weeks. </p><p>	The other thing she wanted to share with Hannah was her wish for another baby and the frustrations in finding a way to conceive a new precious child. . Johnny was six months older that Amelia now. Would he get a little brother or sister any time soon?</p><p> Probably not. Hannah had a demanding senior position with the United Nations. She had her hands full, as did Margot, their eldest sister in Ohio.  By the time Andy went through the front door of the townhouse, she was feeling decidedly flimsy and frivolous, living in the lap of luxury on Miranda’s money, and able to choose when and how she worked. Sheldon was quite right. She needed to focus on writing much more and get her priorities right!</p><p>	But when she found her little toddler, her heart melted. Amelia was fast asleep on the sofa in the family room, her head on Miranda’s favourite white silk cushion, clutching her little velveteen mouse.</p><p>	“She was fair tuckered up when I collected her,” said Cara, using an expression Andy hadn’t heard in a while. </p><p> “But they said she was cheerful the whole time and joined in all the songs and games. I wouldn’t say it to her face, but I think Miranda was right. Nursery school will suit our baby. I just hate to see them grow up so fast. Every hour with them is so precious.”</p><p>	“I know. I know,” agreed Andrea quietly, and decided to confide in Cara. “You know, we are planning on another baby, maybe for next summer. We haven’t told the twins yet. But if we did, …could you cope, you know, with another…?”</p><p>	“Could I cope?” Cara’s smile was as wide as a new moon. “You betcha!”</p><p>	“Well, it’s a secret for now. We want to run it past Caroline and Cassie first. Having seen just what having one baby in the house involves, they may not be so enthusiastic next time around.”</p><p>	“Of course, I won’t say a word. But I don’t think you’ll have any problems there. Anything which cements your marriage to the boss more and more securely will be fine by them. As long as you stay safe, and there are no complications.  We can’t afford to lose you, honey. Miranda would just curl up and die.”</p><p>	“Nothing bad will happen to me, I promise,” replied, Andrea, giving Cara a hug. “But I will need your help again soon. Could you possibly house-sit and look after our pets from July 5th to 15th, when I take Miranda and Amelia to London for a holiday while our older girls are away at camp?”</p><p>	“Yes, of course. Just bring me back some of that strong Yorkshire Tea, and a few packets of those Chocolate Digestive cookies they sell in the UK.”</p><p>	“It’s a deal!” laughed Andy. And they left Amelia to finish her nap. </p><p> </p><p>Miranda’s quick flit to London had played havoc with her sleep patterns even more than they had affected Andy’s. In earlier years she had flown back and forth across time-zones with ease, but now the sensitivities in her brain seemed much more pronounced. She had almost fallen asleep at her desk in the early afternoon, and now, 2 am New York time, she was having a hard time not jumping out of bed to start the day. </p><p>She decided to read for a while and reached over to take Andy’s current book off the night stand.</p><p>Hmm, it was one of her new friend’s Sheldon’s pot-boilers. Miranda decided to see for herself why Andy was so enamoured of this novelist. She put on her reading glasses, turned on the tiny reading light you could attach to the book, and settled down to be unimpressed. </p><p>Miranda read for two hours, and by then she was almost too frightened to go to sleep. This book was the stuff of nightmares. It had pace, it had a good structure, but it was decapitated corpses and evidence of torture in every chapter. Nasty. Really nasty.  She turned off her light and thought about it.</p><p>She knew many writers, but she acknowledged most of them were essayists and journalists. Fiction writers didn’t cross her path nearly so often, so she had less personal knowledge of why such people wrote in the various genres. </p><p>This author was good, too mature simply to be churning out dystopian fantasies for young adults addicted to zombies and para-psychology. If this novel was an example of her work, then real life horror was the key to her success. </p><p>But what lay beneath it? Miranda could only think that the author’s mind was very dark indeed, or she was a very unhappy soul. Even after one reading, Miranda felt depressed, and oppressed by the atmosphere of the story. The main character, the protagonist, seemed equally depressed. There was no joy anywhere in the pages, no sub-text of light relief. </p><p>  Miranda had always enjoyed the detective novels of Sara Paretsky, set in the urban under-belly of Chicago and dealing with some seriously corrupt themes, but her stories had always had a warmth and a humanity about them. This New York writer on the other hand seemed to feed on the darkness and little else. </p><p>Miranda decided she must take some immediate steps to protect and insulate sunny-hearted Andrea from the negativity she was certain lurked inside this new friend. But Andy had come home from their latest tryst full of the joys of spring, and had enthused about her all over dinner. </p><p>“She’s just like you, Miri,” she’d said, astonishing Miranda at one point.</p><p>“Whatever do you mean?” </p><p>Miranda hadn’t felt at all flattered by the comparison.</p><p>Andy had giggled.</p><p>“She doesn’t like me saying ‘stuff’.”</p><p>“Oh. Well. Anything else?”</p><p>“She gets to places far too early as well. It makes the other person always feel late.”</p><p>Miranda was relieved there were no other similarities and had changed the subject promptly when Andy had then talked of them arranging a meeting. But now she decided to set one up. They could then all turn up too early, and she would face Sheldon Murphy fair and square. </p><p>Having had two hours of insomnia, she felt she had made a good use of the time. And all the while Andy had slept on, blissfully oblivious of her wife’s anxious concern.</p>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Breakfast, and then Lunch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Miranda and Sheldon meet, but is it for the first time?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Quite unaware of Miranda’s night-time cogitations, Andy sprang into action the following morning and called her sister Hannah soon after 6am. </p><p>	They were both sitting in their respective kitchens feeding their toddlers breakfast and wiping oatmeal and mashed banana off all the surrounding surfaces.  When Andy asked if there was a chance of them meeting before the weekend, Hannah sighed and said, regrettably not in her case. </p><p>	“We’re off to Cincinnati for a long weekend tomorrow, and I haven’t got a spare second today. I am trying to pack three days’ work into one.”</p><p>	Andy felt a pang of jealousy. It was too long since she’d seen her darling grandmother Momma, and she envied Hannah and Harry. </p><p>	“Oh well, that’s great for you. Give them all our best love, won’t you, especially Momma. Miranda and I are working every day too until the holiday. Then we are taking Amelia to London for two weeks after the twins leave for camp, so it will be almost the end of next month before we can meet the rest of the family again.”</p><p>	“How are you, darling?” asked Hannah. “You sound somewhat unsettled and a bit down in the dumps.”</p><p>	“No, no, I’m absolutely fine. I just wanted a sisterly bit of advice and a shoulder to cry on.”</p><p>	“Why?” Hannah sounded really concerned.</p><p>	Andy was astonished to discover she did suddenly feel like crying. </p><p>“Oh, it’s nothing. Just my hormones playing up. Miranda and I are hoping for another baby, but we can’t find a donor, and I’m about to start another period which brings it all home. And Miranda’s just discovered a whole new family on her father’s side, with huge personalities involved.  It’s just all rather overwhelming right now.”</p><p>	Hannah’s advice was absolutely to the point. </p><p>	“Call up Mom and tell her all about it. She’ll cheer you up. I’m sorry I hogged her for nearly the whole time when she came to New York last week. But the Tokyo trip was suddenly sprung on me.”</p><p>	“You must be so jet-lagged. London for four days was bad enough to disrupt my sleep patterns and Miranda was awake half the night.”</p><p>	“Tell me about it! I’m propping up my eyelids with matchsticks right now. But let’s talk again soon. We can always skype.”</p><p>“Sure. Let’s do that.”</p><p> And Andrea returned to persuading Amelia that having asked for a boiled egg, it would be a good idea to eat it, not throw it across the room.</p><p>Miranda entered just then and narrowly missed being splattered with half the egg.</p><p>“Amelia! Stop that at once.”</p><p>And Amelia stopped at once and fluttered her eyelashes like a proper little diva. </p><p>“I loves you Mommy.”</p><p>“In that case, eat your egg like a good girl. And say sorry to Mama, who cooked it so nicely for you.”</p><p>“Sorry Mama. I loves you too.”</p><p>Andrea noticed that Tilly had quietly walked over and was eating the splattered egg off the floor. Miranda delicately stepped over the mess and poured herself a coffee.</p><p>“I’ve been thinking. Sheldon and I should meet, today if possible, or certainly tomorrow.”</p><p>“Oh? Sure, but why the rush…?”</p><p>“I want to ask her some more about why she chose to review “The Lost Child”, and what she made of the author.”</p><p>“I think she said it was just in a pile sent to her by the US publisher. It’s being released next Monday, you know.”</p><p>“I know, but there may be more she knows. I just think it will be interesting, and you’ve had the pleasure of her company three times now. Can you set up a lunch date for us, sweetie? Come along yourself, of course, if you want to.”</p><p>Andrea’s ‘Miranda’ antennae quivered as she wondered what her wife was up to. Nothing with Miranda was ever quite as simple as it appeared. </p><p>She wondered if she really wanted to sit between the two women over lunch, being the object of both their affections, and the focus of their conversation. Though of course, Sheldon’s liking of her was purely professional and platonic.</p><p>“I’ll set the lunch date up, maybe even for today, if you are free. But I’m going to stay home and write if you don’t mind. I promised Sheldon I would prioritize my writing, and this naughty little Miss will be at nursery again, so I will have the time for it.”</p><p>“Just as you wish, darling,” said Miranda. “Invite your friend to take lunch with me at Giovanni’s for 1pm. It sufficiently near to the office for me to slide in and out without too much disruption.  By the way, I read her novel by your bedside last night.”</p><p>“What did you make of it?”</p><p>“Absolutely horrible.” Miranda pulled a face. “But I see why she makes money. Don’t ever write books like that yourself, will you, please darling?”</p><p>“Oh, I won’t,” Andrea reassured her. “I won’t.”</p><p>She made the call after breakfast and Sheldon reluctantly agreed to lunch alone with Miranda, though she urged Andy to come as well.</p><p>“No, I’m writing. Just as you advised. Miranda wants to talk to you about your review. I’m sure you will get on famously.”</p><p>Andrea in fact was quietly having an attack of monthly cramps, which was the main private reason she didn’t want to go out to lunch, and she ended up dosing herself with painkillers, and writing on her sofa with a heat pad across her belly.  But she managed four thousand words, a thousand of which she was reasonably happy with, so counted the day a success. </p><p>By the end of the day when Cara had collected Amelia from another triumphant day at nursery, and the twins had come home from a music lesson and a horse-riding session respectively, Andy felt a little better, and was growing very curious as to how Miranda’s lunch with Sheldon had gone. Just like Amelia, as the clock struck six, she began to listen out for the key turning in the lock of the front door. </p><p> </p><p>Miranda had been driven the few necessary blocks to her lunch appointment, not anticipating there would be much of a battle. She didn’t acknowledge it openly to herself, but she just wanted to stake out her territory and assert her supremacy. She wouldn’t be so crude as to warn Sheldon Murphy off her patch, but underneath the veneer of civilisation, that was what this lunch was really all about. Andy was hers. Period.</p><p>Clever, snarky, Upper East side literary types had long since ceased to be a threat to her sangfroid. They were all ultimately chasing commissions or influential contacts, and she didn’t expect Andy’s new friend to be any serious challenge. But she did need to test out the vague feeling of unease she’d felt from the beginning and was keen to meet the author of those blood-thirsty nihilistic novels thrust on her wife’s reading table and under their bed.</p><p> </p><p>Giovanni’s was crowded, as always, but she was ushered through to her usual reserved table, at fifteen minutes of one. She wanted to have time to compose herself before Seldon Murphy arrived. </p><p>But someone was already seated, someone who rose to shake her hand briefly as their eyes met, someone Miranda realised she faintly recognised, although for the life of her, she couldn’t place when or where they’d met. The woman was tall, dishevelled and yet attractive in a Bohemian, careless sort of way. Miranda suddenly felt she was wearing too much lipstick, that her heels were too high, that her nails were too perfectly manicured.</p><p>They exchanged appraising glances, cautious, and equally calculating. </p><p>“I came early. It’s been a while since I ate here. I just asked for some water.”</p><p>“I hope you didn’t mind, dragging you downtown. It’s handy for the office.”</p><p>“No trouble at all.”</p><p>The waiter handed them two menus and placed two bottles of San Peregrino on the table.</p><p>“It’s a shame Andy couldn’t come. Is she very busy with the children?”</p><p>“Not at all. She’s writing all day, following your advice.”</p><p>“She has real talent. Her voice is so fresh, so young and bold. I want to nourish it, encourage her as much as she needs. She deserves it.”</p><p>Miranda could feel the subtle undercurrents of judgement in everything Sheldon was saying, as though she wasn’t sufficiently encouraging of Andy, as though she was some old, restrictive ball and chain round the young woman’s ankle.</p><p>“Of course, she does. But my Andrea deserves more. She’s worthy of the moon and the stars. I would give them to her if she’d take them. But she hasn’t got a selfish bone in her body, and never pushes herself forward into the limelight. She knows I will support her in whatever she chooses to do.”</p><p>The waiter returned, and they both ordered salads, Miranda with a steak of yellow-fin tuna, and Sheldon with shrimp.  Sheldon kept up her little barbs.</p><p>“You married her very quickly, when she was very young, didn’t you? Didn’t you buy a property up on the Cape simply in order to marry in Massachusetts? Why the rush?”</p><p>“Well, it wasn’t a shot-gun wedding, if that’s what you’re implying!”</p><p>Miranda didn’t like the way the conversation was heading, so decided to turn it back to Joseph Princhek’s autobiography.</p><p>“The reason I wanted to meet you was to thank you for giving us the book, The Lost Child, and to ask you how you found it, what your take is on the writer.”</p><p>She was determined not to reveal her true relationship to the author.<br/>
“Oh, I get sent dozens of advanced review copies of novels and biographies. The writer was a man I essentially did not know. But he came alive through the pages. By the end I learned a great deal, about myself as well as about him.”</p><p>Sheldon’s face was impassive. She’d be a good poker player. Then she said,</p><p>“But what about you, Miranda? Why are you so interested in Joseph Princhek? I would have thought he was way out of your league.”</p><p>Miranda kept her face equally still, but knew all these little barbs were coming from somewhere, with a purpose. The question was, from where, and with what aim?” </p><p>“Out of my league? No, no, we are lucky to be a very musical family, Sheldon. My brother Charles is an internationally famous concert cellist, and my fifteen-year-old daughter plays first desk cello in the national youth orchestra.”</p><p> </p><p>“But your true world is all bizarre, high-end fashion and make-up, isn’t it? And those ridiculous galas. Isn’t it true that the cost of one table alone could feed an African village for a month?”</p><p>Miranda did not deign to reply to that question, giving her full attention to her lunch for some minutes, but then she said. “The tradition of philanthropy among the rich in the USA is one I am always happy to promote, in support of many good causes. </p><p>“But I am interested in your work as well. Tell me, how does an apparently articulate and fair-minded  literary critic churn out dozens of horror novels which focus so intensely on absolute evil and the worst things people can do to each other?”</p><p>Again, the poker face looked back at her. But after staring at Miranda for a full nine seconds, Sheldon said, “You want the truth?  I was very badly hurt, twice, when I was much younger. So I might say it’s a way of exorcism, externalising inner pain and lancing through it by writing it away in fiction. </p><p>“And what you call horror, I call realism. The plots of my novels are based on the violence seen everyday on the streets of New York. Unspeakable things are happening within a mile or two of us here, even as we sit and eat salads in a fashionable eating place like this one.”</p><p>Miranda knew Sheldon was right. The brutality of life for so many in new York was one reason she was so grateful to have steered Andrea away from newspaper journalism into the much safer world of fiction.  She just prayed Sheldon didn’t pull her gentle wife down with her into all the violence and crime swirling round them.</p><p>“I’m sorry you were hurt. I know something of childhood deprivation myself…”</p><p>“Oh, I wasn’t deprived. In fact I was materially rather spoilt. But I was betrayed, first by my father, and then when I was in my late twenties, by my lover. And I have the sort of character, Miranda, which never forgets, and never forgives. I have recently come to peace with my late father’s actions, but as for the other betrayal, the wound is still open and infectious and I will have my revenge, one day. Be sure of that.”</p><p>Miranda felt a shiver down her spine. The woman was talking in generalities, but it was almost as though her remarks were directed straight at Miranda. For all her ability to read minds and sense other people’s weak points, Miranda was having the hardest time fathoming Sheldon. There were so many layers, so much mystery about her, even down to her real name. </p><p>Miranda had the strongest sense that it was a brittle layer of thin ice over which the writer was leading her, and if this cracked, then she’d be swallowed up by dark and swirling waters below. She couldn’t imagine how Andy found Sheldon so attractive, why she was so enamoured of her.  But Sheldon must be putting on a great show of positivity, and probably really did want to impress Andrea. Well, of course, who wouldn’t?  Andy was an angel.</p><p>“My Andrea…”</p><p>“Why do you call her that? You don’t own her. She’s not one of your possessions…”</p><p>“Oh she is.” Miranda was now getting her dander up. “Andrea is totally mine, the jewel of my heart, just as I belong to her, body and soul, and no-one will ever come between us.”</p><p>Then Miranda quoted the 16th century poem they had shared at their wedding.</p><p>“My true love hath my heart and I have his…”</p><p>“Gee, you’re very defensive. But if you want a candid opinion, I think you take Andy far too much for granted. She seems to have to squeeze her writing in round the corners of your life. Look at the way you pulled her away with you last weekend without any notice at all.”</p><p>Miranda said coldly, “You know nothing about us, well hardly anything at all, and yet you presume to pass judgement on my marriage? I won’t stop your friendship with Andrea. She is her own, strong self, and makes her own decisions. But if you hurt her in any way, any way at all, I’m telling you, I too never forget, and in your case will certainly never forgive!”</p><p>Sheldon had the temerity to smile coldly in response to this very real threat from Miranda. She didn’t cower in the slightest. </p><p>“Ok, OK,  keep that lacquered hair on! Or is it a wig? My goodness, you’re a passionate thing, aren’t you? Not the fashion obsessed ice-queen after all!”</p><p>“I have to return to work,” said Miranda stiffly. “Lunch is on me, on my account, so do stay for coffee if you wish, but I must go.”</p><p>Sheldon put out her hand and took hold of Miranda’s wrist.</p><p>“We haven’t got off to the best start, have we, and I apologise for my part in that. But we will meet again. We may not like each other, but we both love Andy and that will connect us for ever.”</p><p>“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve only known Andy two weeks. You’re not allowed to love her. I won’t let you!”</p><p>Miranda was aware even as she said it, how immature she sounded, especially when Sheldon replied, “Won’t you? Oh, you may try to stop Andy loving, or even liking me, Miranda Priestly. You may even succeed. But one thing you can’t do, is stop me loving her. Not in this world, anyway!”</p><p>Miranda scowled down at the restraining hand, and Sheldon hastily removed it. For a moment, a pure flame of fury shot through Miranda, and she had an urge to slap the other woman right across the face.  Instead, she tossed her head, and picked up her bag.</p><p>“Good-bye,” was all she could manage to say, and then she walked away out of the restaurant with as much dignity as she could muster.  The lunch had gone just as badly as any lunch had ever done in her life. She felt hot and foolish with love for Andy and as jealous as any fifty-five-year-old woman married to a gorgeous young wife could feel. And jealous of what?</p><p>How dare that woman presume to love her lover! That raggle-taggle outfit, the unkempt hair, the disdain for any make-up, and wrinkled skin. She must be eight or even ten years older than Miranda, easily, so her attraction for Andrea was even more inappropriate than her own. </p><p>Miranda’s emotions swirled around her heart and head as she strode towards the car, parked up nearby with Roy faithfully waiting as always. But then, a tiny sliver of memory entered her brain, and a remembered phrase, an insult more accurately, came straight into her mind. She remembered where she had seen Sheldon Murphy before.</p><p>Long, long ago. A different name then. A different appearance, but the phrase….</p><p>“Don’t joke with me darling…not that stupid little dressmaker? You cannot be serious…”.</p><p>And despite the afternoon heat Miranda shivered, genuinely afraid.</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. The way we were</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Miranda comes home to a cool house and a warm heart, and has a long conversation.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Dear readers, especially new ones,<br/>As you all realise no doubt by now, my Mirandy stories, apart from The Touch, form one long sequential series. To fully understand the back story to what's happening in this episode, I would recommend you maybe find time to read "Miranda's Birthday" which introduces her older lesbian friends, Lee and Gloria, and to cut to the chase and learn what really happened back in her twenties, read Chapter 15 of "Miranda's Enchanted April."  Having said that, I'll be grateful if you just stick with this story. We are nearly there, I promise you, unless my mind darts off down another dark tunnel. But it is definitely happy ending country up ahead.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Andy heard the key turn and helped Amelia untie herself from her harness as she tried to clamber out of her high chair in order to make a bee-line for the front-door. She followed a little more slowly – her cramps had returned, but she was as equally excited to see Miranda as Amelia was.</p><p>  She did so hope the lunch had gone well and that Miranda and Sheldon would jell together somehow. But as soon as she saw Miranda’s face, she knew something wasn’t right, and her hopes of them being best friends faded fast.</p><p>	Miranda looked exhausted, drooping in the New York heat, despite riding home in an air-conditioned saloon, and she couldn’t even meet Andy’s eyes to start with. She dropped her bags and wearily bent to take off her heels.</p><p>	“Aah, that’s better,” she sighed. Amelia, who was developing quite a shoe fetish, grabbed both and started a dance, waving them round her head, and singing “Mommy’s home! Mommy’s home! All fall down!” Then she fell over and rolled across the floor, still clutching the strappy high-heeled sandals to her chest.</p><p>	Miranda suddenly looked much shorter and almost frail in her bare feet.  Andrea went over and scooped her wife up in a hug, holding her tightly, almost as though she worried she might suddenly copy Amelia and lie down on the hall floor with her. </p><p>	“Hey, what’s the matter? I have feared the worst, not hearing from you. I knew if you had had a wonderful time, you’d have at least texted me to tell me.”</p><p>	Miranda put her head against Andy’s shoulder and let herself be held for a few moments. Then she said, “My darling, you don’t need to fear anything. But, no, I didn’t have a wonderful time with your friend. But I do know why that was.  We need to have a talk, but later maybe,  after ‘you know who’ has gone to ‘you know where’.”</p><p>	She pointed down at the wriggling child at her feet. Bed-times were the new war-zone in the land of Princess Amelia, and it didn’t pay to bring up the subject too early in the evening.</p><p>	Andrea said “Cara’s still here. She’s been making egg mayonnaise, but I’m sure will happily swop jobs and take our princess upstairs for a cuddle and a story.”</p><p>	“Very well. I need a shower first anyway. I feel as though I’ve had one hot flash after another all day.”</p><p>	“And I’ve been doubled up with cramps. We’re a right pair. Who’d be a woman?”</p><p> </p><p>	They met in their bedroom fifteen minutes later. The air-con was up to maximum, and Miranda had stripped out of her work clothes into a loose fine cotton robe. A cold shower had calmed down her body, and the pounding headache which had crept into her temples since meeting Sheldon Murphy was finally showing her some mercy and beating a retreat. </p><p>	Andy, though, was wearing very short shorts and a tank top, which didn’t help at all. Too much delicious apricot coloured skin on show. Too big a reminder of how desirable her wife was. Just too much to lose. Miranda felt her temperature rise, along with her libido, just from looking at her. </p><p>	Andy might look edible. But her voice was business-like. </p><p>	“OK, sweetie. I want the whole story. What happened to upset you, and why shouldn’t I go out and shoot Sheldon right now and get it over with?”</p><p>	Miranda gulped. So Andy was on her side already, by default? That was a delightful surprise.  She had expected the opposite, that she would be blamed for any failure in the relationship, for anything which would spoil Andy’s new friendship. She didn’t know where to start however, so decided she would begin at the end. </p><p>	“It was when I was going back to Runway that I realised who Sheldon was, where we’d met before.”</p><p>	“Huh? So you know each other? I suspected as much. You know, you are so similar, even though you might not think it.”</p><p>	“No, we aren’t similar at all!  Only in one thing, and it’s a pretty big thing. When I was young and foolish, and not sure of anything much, the person who now calls herself Sheldon Murphy and I were loved by the same woman, and I’m afraid the two relationships were concurrent for a while. Until I demanded sole right of access, and Sheldon was the one who was made to leave.”</p><p>	“Gloria! Her and Gloria? You, her and Gloria?”</p><p>	“Yes.”</p><p>	“Fuck! So what were you doing? Having a threesome?”</p><p>	Andrea hardly ever used that expletive. Miranda quickly wanted to dispel any suspicion that things were worse than they were. </p><p>	“God, no! We never actually met, in person. Though there was one very embarrassing episode where she stormed into the apartment, and Gloria hid me in the bathroom.  I could hear her voice. She called me “the stupid little dressmaker”, and I recognised that same voice this afternoon. </p><p>“I’m not proud of what I did, of breaking them up thirty years or more ago Andy, but Gloria literally swept me off my feet, and carried me into her bed. She taught me not to be afraid of sex, and especially how great it could be between women. We lived together quietly for three years, but then I became more and more obsessed with work and tired of living a double life, and Gloria met up with Lee. I decided I wanted a conventional marriage, to a man, and she let me go with a cautious blessing. Though she told me I couldn’t fight against my nature, and I’d regret trying to be straight. I think I told you all of this when we were in Italy.”</p><p>	“Yes, you did, and I know Gloria and Lee have stayed friends with you for thirty years. But what about Sheldon, or whoever she is? Has she secretly known who you are then ever since I met her? I guess she can’t have been too happy about what happened back then.”</p><p>Miranda lay down on her bed and closed her eyes.</p><p>“She isn’t. She really isn’t. It’s still burning away inside her, like an ulcer.  I think I’m the reason she writes about murder and decapitated corpses. And you know? I was so young and selfish I forgot all about her! I never considered her feelings at all.”</p><p>Miranda wondered how she could have impacted on someone’s life so negatively without even being aware of it. That in itself scared her.</p><p>“I was just in love, with New York, with being at Runway, and with the idea of being in love. Gloria never mentioned her former girlfriend again, not really. Though we did once glimpse her at some literary luncheon a month or two later, and I saw them exchanging a few words. She was very striking in those days, tall and thin with very dark curly hair but I kept well away. I didn’t want a physical confrontation.”</p><p>“Gloria wrote for the New Yorker, didn’t she? Sheldon said she got her first big break as a reviewer with them.”</p><p>“Yes. It was where they met. But the point is, this afternoon Sheldon told me straight out, without acknowledging that I was the guilty party, that she would never forget and never forgive, and she would take revenge on the person who broke her heart all those years ago, the one who stole the love of her life.”</p><p>“Doesn’t Lee deserve that role though, rather than you, darling? Lee and Gloria have been together for decades. They were even married up in Provincetown just after we were.”</p><p> Andy didn’t appear too fazed by Sheldon’s threat, but she hadn’t been there at the lunch, hadn’t seen the stony cold emptiness in Sheldon’s eyes. Miranda shivered as she recalled just how it had been.  </p><p>“No, I think it is me she blames, probably correctly, for taking Gloria out of their relationship, and destroying her own happiness.  I am really scared, Andy. She may have stumbled on you by chance, but everything she said makes me convinced that she now intends to take you from me. She told me right out, that she loves you, and there is nothing I can do to stop her.”</p><p>Andy went and lay down on the bed beside Miranda. She put her arm round her shoulders and drew her down against her chest. Miranda could feel the beating of her heart and snuggled in. She was then immensely comforted by Andy’s next words.</p><p>“In that case I’m afraid she’s going to be disappointed a second time. I love you, and only you. You are my goddess, my queen. We even have a baby for God’s sake, and the twins are my daughters as much as if I had been there at their birth.  Sure, I like Sheldon. Her mind fascinates me. But I don’t love her like that and I never could.  I’m a “Mirandasexual”. I only fancy people called Miranda. Whatever Sheldon’s real name is, she doesn’t stand a chance!”</p><p>“I was so scared…You were obviously attracted to her.”</p><p>“You have absolutely no need, sweetie. And if she made any sort of threat against you, then I am dropping our friendship like a hod of bricks from the top of the Empire State Building.”</p><p>“Yes, I’m sorry. I know it may sound unreasonable. But I don’t think I could bear it if you keep meeting up with her. She did accuse me of keeping you almost under lock and key, said I treated you like a possession.”</p><p>“Well, I hope you do. Possess me I mean. Like I possess you.”</p><p>They lay together in silence. Then Andrea said, “I think you should call Gloria, this evening. Tell her everything. Ask her if Sheldon has ever threatened her or Lee, if she’s ever displayed sociopathic tendencies.”</p><p>“I will. Hell, Andy, do you think she’s capable of doing some of the things she writes about in her novels? I don’t want to be tied up in a cellar and have my fingers cut off slowly, one by one.”</p><p>“That episode was a beauty, wasn’t it? No, I think you are right. If the crazy lady does want revenge, even after all these years, she’d want to make the punishment fit the crime, so she may try to seduce me and turn me away from you. But she has no idea, no idea at all…”</p><p>“No idea of what?”</p><p>“No idea of how besotted I am with you.”</p><p>And Andy kissed Miranda, sweetly, on the cheek.</p><p>“Don’t cry! Don’t cry!” Miranda thought to herself. It would be such a sign of pathetic weakness. But she felt a disobedient tear escape and roll down her cheek. </p><p>“I was so scared,” she whispered. “So scared. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”</p><p>Andy put a finger to stop her mouth moving. “Sshh. No more talk like that. How could you even think such a thing might be possible?”</p><p>Then she said “Oh, and besides, I called Mom this afternoon and I think we may have found a solution to finding a father for our baby! I told her all about your London relations, especially Charlie, and she made a most interesting suggestion. Want to hear it?”</p><p>And Miranda wiped her wet face with the bed sheet and nodded.</p><p>“I sure do,” she said. “What did Jenny suggest?”</p><p>“Well…that we need to start thinking outside the box…”</p><p>“I’m good at that. That’s something I do on a daily basis,” said Miranda, and immediately felt better. Perhaps there really would be a baby by the following summer after all. </p><p>“Tell me more…” she said, and so Andy did.</p>
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<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Salad days</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Andrea and Miranda think outside the box, and Lee and Gloria remember the good old days.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Andrea began to talk. </p><p>	“Mom said to start with, that we should look at another way, closer to home to find a donor, and didn’t I remember that I had two older brothers, one of whom is an obstetrician, for whom she was sure sperm donation would be no big deal, especially if it allowed his sister and her wife to conceive another addition to their family?” </p><p>	Miranda pointed out the obvious problem there. “But you can’t mate with your own brother! That’s incest,”</p><p>	“Obviously not. But keep thinking along these lines honey. . .”</p><p>	“Dear heart, it takes two to tango and I am definitely past producing eggs. My last period was four months ago.”</p><p>	“Yes. . .but. . . ?”</p><p>	“What?”</p><p> </p><p>	“Think who has recently bounced into our life? … Someone fifteen years younger than you. . . someone who we know is your half-sister, who would love to be part of producing a baby…”<br/>
“Charlie... Charlie?”</p><p>	“Exactly. She could donate an egg. We could ask Ted to fertilise it. It can be implanted into my uterus, and then whoopie-do. The Priestly -Sachs family has a brand new member on the way.”</p><p>	“You make it sound simple, but the whole thing would actually be very complicated to set up, and probably expensive. And it’s a shame you can’t use your own eggs. You’re eminently fertile.”</p><p>	Andrea snorted and did that eye-rolling thing Miranda recognised when she said something ridiculous.</p><p> “And there speaks a woman who will willingly pay eight thousand dollars for a dress she might only wear once, and two thousand on shoes to go with it!  I know it will be complicated, but if all parties agree, then I am sure it is doable. Think about it, honey. I knew there was a reason that book came into our lap, why after all these years you decided to trace your father’s family. And as Mom said, from her selfish point of view it would still give her another biological grandchild, and Momma, a great- grandchild.”</p><p>	Miranda replied, “But we have no idea what Charlie, and her partner will think about it. Perhaps Caroline will be as difficult and hostile to the idea as Bunny’s Bruno was. And what about your brother Edward, and his wife? They may feel similarly.”</p><p>	“Darling Miri, there are lots of possibilities for disappointment here. No need to stack them up in front of us one by one. I will ask Mom to talk to Ted and Brooke. They both adore her and will agree if they see she is enthusiastic.”</p><p>	“But what about your father? I can’t see Richard agreeing to anything so ‘modern’.”</p><p>	“It won’t be up to him, will it? This isn’t the 1950s. And I’m sure when he sees another rascal running about his feet, he’ll love the idea as much as the rest of us. Look how he adores Amelia. She can already wrap him around her little finger.”</p><p>	Miranda went silent, lay back on the pillows and then closed her eyes. She needed to think, to consider all the possible outcomes, the scenarios, any other viable options. It was true, Charlie was a darling, and so affectionate. She had been calling and texting at least once a day since they’d returned from London. But in reality they still hardly knew each other.</p><p>	And though she looked in good health, they had no idea of her physical ability to donate eggs, nor of her mental stability. Miranda also guessed Charlie would want a bigger role in Baby No 2’s life and upbringing, far more than Bunny had wanted with Amelia. How would that work out? </p><p>	And Miranda was concerned above all things for Andrea’s well-being, how she would feel about carrying another woman’s egg, how she would manage another pregnancy. Was it all worth the risk?</p><p>	Andrea watched, and waited patiently. She wasn’t going to jolt Miranda into something unless they were both completely sure. But it was a method used by lesbian couples across the world, to share the conception and birth of a child. Medically, she knew it was feasible, especially if they could lure Charlie over to the states for the procedures to take place in a top New York clinic. </p><p>	Miranda was silent for so long, Andy almost wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But then she saw Miranda’s hand creep across the bed and grab hers.</p><p>	Miranda asked quietly “What do you think, my love? Is this something you’d be happy with? If it is, then I am willing. It would still be our baby, born because of our love for each other. I’m prepared to ask Charlie, at least, to take the first step on the way.”</p><p>	Andrea nestled back close to her and blew the curl of hair away from Miranda’s forehead.</p><p>	“Yes. I’d be very happy. I think life has thrown us this ball, given you a new sister who says she’s always regretted she’s not been able to have a baby. And I think we should pick it up and run with it.”</p><p>	“I’ve never been a big fan of football. I don’t even understand the rules.”</p><p>	“But we can both learn to understand the rules of this new game. Let’s do some research and weigh up the risks and the odds of a successful conception, and then let’s do it.”</p><p>	“OK,” and Miranda muttered, almost under her breath. “And that would show Sheldon Murphy just what we think of her threats…”</p><p>	And Andrea laughed and said, “Yes, and won’t she be mad as hell when she learns that I’m pregnant again?  I’ll call Mom, if you call Charlie. Let’s see how that goes?”</p><p>	And so Miranda agreed. </p><p> </p><p>	When she was alone, Andrea turned her mind back to the state Miranda had been in when she’d first arrived home, how upset she’d been by encountering Sheldon, and heard all the veiled barbs and threats she made.  It made Andy angry and she felt furious enough to begin with, to send off a peremptory email cancelling their relationship in its entirety. </p><p>But then she wondered if she shouldn’t do more, perhaps talk sensibly and openly to Sheldon about the obvious impossibility of their continuing friends under the circumstances. She didn’t want to stoke even more resentment into Sheldon about poor darling Miranda, she wanted to make it clear, her feelings of outrage about the way Sheldon had spoken came from herself, not Miranda. </p><p>What she wouldn’t have had the self-confidence to do maybe in her early twenties, she felt assured enough to articulate now. Sheldon needed to get over that loss and heartbreak from thirty years before, get over it, heal and move on finally. But she would choose her words, and the timing of sahying them, carefully. So the email remained unsent, for now, at least. </p><p>	What she did ask Miranda to do, and they sorted it together later that night, sharing the call on speaker phone, was to phone Gloria over at her home Laguna Beach on the West Coast. And that conversation proved very illuminating. </p><p>	Miranda explained all about the book-review and then contacting the reviewer to get an advanced copy. </p><p>	“Andy went round to her apartment and obviously made a big impression at once, because the woman who wrote it, now calling herself Sheldon Murphy, has met up with her twice in as many weeks, and has interviewed her for the New Yorker, full of compliments and promises of future camaraderie. </p><p>“The only problem was when I met her today, things were very different. She had a big fat hostile agenda running, and I didn’t understand why, until I suddenly remembered…Gloria, what was the name of your girl-friend, before me? The one who blamed me for disrupting your happy home? I know it was her, simply from recognising her voice.”</p><p>	“Oh my God!” Gloria had got the message by the end of Miranda’s account, and was now fully focused. </p><p>	“Kas or Karen Punchiness was her real name. Punchy by name and Punchy by nature. Oh, you poor thing! I haven’t heard from her for years, but she was one seriously crazy lady, and obsessive to the point of madness. </p><p>"It wasn’t you who broke us up, babe. She had been driving me insane for a year or more, jealous of everyone, male or female, who ever exchanged two sentences with me.</p><p> "You need to give her a wide berth, you and sweet Andrea both. And the worst of it is, she comes across so normal to begin with, so rational. And she was a talented writer, no doubt about that. I just couldn’t stand living on tenterhooks all the time, frightened she might blow up at any moment. </p><p>"It was the determining factor for me moving out with Lee onto the West Coast. I reckoned with three thousand miles between us, I’d be safe, and Lee wouldn’t be in danger.” </p><p>	Andy chipped in at this point. “Why does she use so many different names? She writes under Sheldon Murphy, and publishes those ‘Dagger in the Back’ novels under the pen-name of Stella Hudspeth.”</p><p>	“It’s all part of her paranoic personality. Even when things were at their best between us, she was always frightened something bad would happen, someone from her past would come after her. I almost believed she was under a witness protection programme, or wanted by the FBI. She thrives on mystery.”</p><p>	Miranda and Andrea then heard Gloria’s wife Lee come onto the phone. Lee was now in her late eighties, and wheezing slightly, but her mind was obviously as clear as a bell.</p><p>	“Hi girls. Listen, as I said to Gloria many years ago, I believe Karen is essentially harmless. Crazy yet, and obsessive, but I’m sure she won’t physically harm either of you. It just took her a decade to believe that Gloria wouldn’t leave me and return to her. All her violent sub-conscious desires she sublimates into those novels.”</p><p>	Gloria jumped in here, “Hey, Lee, you never told me you knew about her subsequent career, or what she was doing!”</p><p>	“I made it my business to. I never told you, well, because you didn’t need any more trauma. But I was really concerned to begin with, for your  safety. I hired a PI firm back in the eighties, and again ten years ago, just to follow up. In all that time, Karen had just written book after book, and earned good money as a reviewer. She’s never had another relationship, but equally, she’s kept out of mental hospital and prison, and has never shown any violent behaviour. I am sure, once she knows Miranda and Andrea are united as a couple, she’ll fade from your lives, and leave you alone.”</p><p>	Andy was very sceptical about this and said so, and Miranda felt even more so.</p><p>	“Well, if you are worried, then why not mention it to your normal security firm you use at Runway. You do have one, don’t you?”</p><p>	Miranda said, “Yes, we do, and I think I will, just to be on the safe side, and because of the children. We’re all living close by in this part of New York, after all.” </p><p>Then she changed the subject. “ Now, you two, when are you coming East again. Are you up in Maine at all this year? When can we see you?”</p><p>	Gloria said, “Lee finds it harder to fly these days. We stay home more and more. But you should come and stay with us. We would love to have you. You did say at the time of your delightful birthday party here five years ago that you’d be back every year, but it’s only been once since. Why don’t you bring your darling girls and stay with us again?”</p><p>	“I know, I’m sorry, but this year the girls’ summer will be so busy with their different camps, and then they are due to have a decently long stay with their father, and little Amelia has just started nursery and I don’t want to disrupt her new routine more than necessary.  And then there’s the Sachs family whom we must also visit soon. There really isn’t enough days in the month to fit everything in we would love to do,  - even Provincetown hasn’t seen us for ages.” Miranda realised it was a long litany of excuses, but it was true, all of it. Their lives were just too busy. </p><p>	Gloria said “Frank’s coming out at least, for three weeks in August. Now her second hip’s been done, she’s like a spring chicken again.”</p><p>	Frank was Andy’s grandmother’s nickname for herself, not wanting to be called Momma by her friends, and hating her given name of Amelia. Andy had loved that name though, and had teased her by naming their baby in her honour.  The three older lesbians, Lee and Gloria, and Momma, had met up at Miranda’s birthday party and forged a deep and instant friendship. It delighted and tickled Andy no end, and gave her granny, who only came out as gay after she was eighty, a whole new lease of life.</p><p>	“Well, enjoy your salad days of youth while you have them,” said Lee, as they wound down the conversation. “I wish I had made better use of the time when I had all my joints in working order. We should have been more adventurous.”</p><p>	“Oh really!” They could hear Lee fussing over her adored partner. “We have crossed the Pacific six times, toured every continent, and you’ve exhibited in every major city. Any more activity in our lives, and I wouldn’t be alive now, woman!”</p><p>	Miranda had to smile at the old use of the catch-phrase ‘salad-days’. Her salad-days had never seemed so far behind her. Was she mad to be embarking on yet another excursion into parenthood?</p><p> </p><p>	But Andrea, reading her mind as usual as she put down the phone, said, “Listen to what Lee said, darling. A new adventure waits for us just round the corner. Are you going to call Charlie now? It will be a good time for her, five hours…  Oh damn.  They’re ahead in London, not like California, so she’ll be in bed. Well, email her maybe, so she can think about her reaction overnight.”</p><p>	She pulled on Miranda’s hand to urge her into action, not totally dissimilar to the way Amelia did when she needed Miranda’s attention. And, just as with Amelia, it worked a treat, and Miranda obeyed.</p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Awkward Conversations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>We see more of the start of one new relationship and perhaps the ending of another.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Miranda considered she was getting quite adept at asking newly discovered relations to undergo intimate sexual behaviour for her benefit, but she was truly grateful that Jenny had taken on the task of applying to Andrea’s brother for the gift of his sperm. It wasn’t quite the sort of thing you dropped into casual conversation with your in-laws.</p><p> Besides, she had her own responsibility and wondered how best to deal with her own side of the project of making a new baby. Would, could, her younger sister provide them with some viable eggs? </p><p>She knew that would involve a much more complicated medical procedure.  It might have been better to wait until they returned to London before broaching it, when she could talk to Charlie face to face, but time was against them, and she wanted to give her sister and her partner sufficient space to think it over. It was certainly a big ask.</p><p>But in the end, she needn’t have worried. Charlie was just as positive and enthusiastic over this idea as she had been at first meeting a sister she’d never known she had. She responded as though Andrea and Miranda were doing her the great favour, not the other way around, and in that way was similar to Bunny on his first hearing he had the chance to be a Dad to Amelia.</p><p>She said, as soon as Miranda tentatively mentioned it on the phone, “It’s over the top, cataclysmically wonderful! As soon as you come next month, you must meet Caroline, and we can go through everything that needs to happen. I’ll start reading up on it all first, so I’m prepped up…Of course I’ll come to New York. That’s no problem. Oh, Miranda, I’m so excited!”</p><p>Watching videos of Charlie’s stand-up routine had given Miranda her only misgivings about their proposed joint enterprise. Charlies drew heavily on her own life and adventures for comic effect, and the last thing Miranda wanted was for her and Andrea’s private life to be turned into material and spread all over the world. She could see how egg donation and surrogacy could very easily form the basis of a whole new hilarious routine. She tried to make it clear, without sounding too directive, that this wasn’t to happen, ever.</p><p>“Darling, you forget! I share my life with someone I ‘m forced to almost carry about in a wardrobe, she’s so deeply in the closet. Caroline is perpetually scared her poor elderly parents will discover we are lovers and both die of immediate anaphylactic shock. So, don’t worry, nothing I say in my show bears any resemblance to the real truth of our life together. It kills me, all this secrecy and deception, but I love her and have learned to live with it. So, no, I won’t breathe a word in public about your suggestion, or how it turns out. This will be strictly entre-nous,” said Charlie, putting Miranda’s mind much more at ease. </p><p> “Anyway, when this run finishes, I’m taking six weeks off performing until the autumn, so there will be plenty of time to get everything sorted in peace and quiet.”</p><p>Miranda thanked her profusely and promised they would spend as much time together as possible when she returned to London, and she could hear Charlie whistling as she ended the call. Goodness, she thought, her younger sister was certainly chirpy. Between her and Andrea, how would Miranda cope with all the bon-homie and positivity? </p><p>But she supposed she’d learn to tolerate it. In fact, she realised her own default facial expression had radically changed over the years. No longer was the Priestly death-stare on show; at times her muscles ached from smiling almost too much.</p><p>Miranda’s other, long over-due, priority was to sit down with her twins and talk to them about having yet another little sibling join their family. What did they think? Did they agree?</p><p>Caroline sighed. “Well, it was hard enough getting you into action last time around. Whatever rocks your boat, Mom, but you are getting on a bit, don’t forget.  Andrea will have to do the lion’s share of the work.  How much is this her idea?”</p><p>“I’m not quite in my dotage,” snorted Miranda, “and Andy will barely be thirty! Like everything we do, it’s a joint decision. We think Amelia should have someone nearer her own age in the family, apart from us really wanting another baby together.”</p><p>“I’m cool,” said Cassidy. “It’s about time Melie had some competition on her little throne, but don’t expect me to be there to baby-sit as often as I have until now. We’ll be Juniors next year, and life in the advanced science stream will get pretty serious!”</p><p>“Sweethearts, no one will expect you to sacrifice your lives. Besides, Cara will still be here, as strong a member of our team as ever. I just didn’t want you to be embarrassed in front of your friends by having two small siblings running all over the house.”</p><p>“Mom, compared to everything else you’ve done to embarrass us over the last five years, this will be nothing, trust us!”</p><p>And the twins both hugged her fondly, and kissed her indulgently, like you would any crazy mother with a highly unconventional approach to family life. Amelia came into the room then, just as they were in a group hug, trailing her worn woolly rabbit by its left ear, (Tilly had chewed off half the right one in a moment of absentminded abstraction) and plunged into the melee like a seasoned quarter-back.</p><p>“Me too! Me too!” she cried enthusiastically. And they opened their arms to let her in.</p><p>Andy, on the other hand was involved in planning a very different encounter, and it was one she felt she had to do alone. She hadn’t told Miranda, but she had decided to go to see Sheldon in person, to talk to her woman to woman, and give her no room for ambiguity, or false hope that they had any sort of future as friends, intimate or otherwise. </p><p>Every meeting they had had so far, she now realised, had been on an unequal footing. Sheldon had known from the start that she was Miranda Priestly’s wife, so how genuine had been any of her compliments and commendation of her writing? Andy felt sadly sceptical about it now. She had rather be criticised unfairly than praised dishonestly.</p><p>But also, Andy only now had any idea of who Sheldon really was, of how her past was so tied up with Gloria Levine, and through her back to Miranda. She wanted to get through to the real woman behind all these masks and pseudonyms she adopted. But she didn’t want to prolong their association. She wanted, and needed, for Miranda’s peace of mind, to close it down.</p><p>So, the morning after the disastrous lunch, she called Sheldon and asked her to meet, not in her apartment or the townhouse, but where they had met before, in the same art museum coffee house. She made no comment about Sheldon’s behaviour towards Miranda, and Sheldon sounded positive and keen to meet. For someone so intelligent she appeared pretty dense and insensitive to the effect her words to Miranda would have had on them both. Probably she was simply too self-involved to understand. </p><p>“Andy!” Sheldon was already seated at their previous table and waved encouragingly. “I’ve been looking at your draft and have some ideas. We can…”</p><p>Andy cut her off before she could say any more. “No, Sheldon, we can’t. You can’t make threats and snipe away at the woman I love more than anyone else in the world, and then expect things will carry on as normal. You didn’t tell Miranda who you were, but she remembered your voice later, and she knew just how personal your talk of revenge was. You tried to hurt my wife. How can you expect us to continue as friends after that?”</p><p>Sheldon’s sallow complexion turned a little pink as she flushed, but she attempted to brush Andy’s words aside. “I’ve no idea what you mean. I’ve never met Miranda Priestly before yesterday…”</p><p>“Maybe not properly, but you knew just who she was, the young woman you referred to as “the stupid little dressmaker” to Gloria Levine.  Yes, Miranda was in Gloria’s apartment that day, and heard just what you said.  And you’re not really Sheldon, are you? Isn’t your name Karen Punchiness, Gloria’s ex from all those years ago? I can’t believe you’re still bitter about your break-up, but Gloria and Lee have told us everything. Isn’t it time to get over it and set yourself and them free?”</p><p>Sheldon’s face turned from pink to a deathly white. “Gloria, how do you know Gloria?” she asked.</p><p>“Miranda and Gloria have stayed friends for twenty years. They parted on good terms without any bitterness, and Gloria and Lee came to our wedding. We’re all good friends.”</p><p>What Andy didn’t add was an obvious “Just as you could have done, if you’d been sensible and not so obsessive with hanging on to the fantasy of Gloria coming back to you.”</p><p>Sheldon said, “And you make it sound so easy. Everyone happy together, right?” You’re just a kid. You have no idea how much pain your wife caused me, how my heart was broken because of her. And what was worse, she didn’t really even remember me. I was tossed aside like an old rag, and she couldn’t have cared less.”</p><p>Andy sat down and said seriously.  “In that, yes, you’re right, and Miranda is sorry for it. She was quite unaware of how much hurt you felt.  But Gloria says you were having real problems long before my Miranda turned up. That you were jealous of all her friends, even her work colleagues and vague acquaintances. Isn’t that true?”</p><p>Sheldon looked down and stirred her coffee. She was obviously battling within her own mind to admit Andrea might have a point. But then she looked up and astonishingly, her eyes were filled with tears.</p><p>“I…I…I can’t help it. Somehow, when I get an idea in my head I can’t let it go. I’ve been like this from childhood and it’s meant I’ve lost everything, everything real from my life. Andy, you have no idea of the black world of pain and sadness my spirit inhabits. Writing is my only outlet, and sometimes it feels almost like self-harm. I spill blood on the pages instead of cutting my own wrists.”</p><p>“Now, Sheldon, or Karen, look!” Andy was shocked.  “This is all far too deep for me to advise you about. But it sounds as though this is a classic case of you needing some professional help. Have you tried to find a therapist? It’s never too late to find ways of living more positively, of making peace with the past. Have you tried to get help before?” </p><p>Without thinking about it, Andy stretched out her hand and took Sheldon’s fingers. They were icy cold, despite the season. The woman’s unhappiness spilled out over them both, but it wasn’t sinister or unnerving. It was simply heart-breaking. Something seemed missing in Sheldon’s DNA that would enable her to forgive and forget.</p><p>Sheldon pulled out a handkerchief and dried her eyes. “Not since …not since I was close to suicide in my thirties. But they never helped, those shrinks.”</p><p>“Well, try again. I can ask around and send you some suggestions. My mother is a trained counsellor, specialising in post-traumatic stress in children, and she may well be able to recommend someone in the New York area.”</p><p>Andy gave Sheldon a squeeze on her hand, but then withdrew it and sat back and said, “You do realise, don’t you, that you and I, under these circumstances, we can’t carry on as before? I can’t ask you for any more help. We can’t keep meeting.  It wouldn’t be healthy, or fair to you or Miranda.”</p><p>Sheldon just looked at her, with sad, sad eyes. “I’ve fucked it all up, haven’t I? I really do admire your writing. I think you have a huge talent in that pretty head of yours. I wasn’t making that up. And you’ll see from the interview article, when it’s published, that I only want the best for you.”</p><p>“As I do for you, as I’m sure also do Miranda, Gloria and Lee. Life’s too short not to forgive, it’s too short and too fragile.”</p><p>“Proper little Pollyanna, aren’t you?” said Sheldon, but there was no bite to her remark.  “I am sure those other women all think I am one crazy bitch, and they are probably right.  But your opinion means a lot to me, and one thing I said to ‘your’ Miranda was totally true. I do love you, Andrea, not sexually, - I am far too old and dried up inside for that – but as a person who sees your exasperatingly sweet nature, your talent, and that magnetic smile of yours. Miranda Priestly is a very, very lucky woman to have you. I hope she appreciates you.”</p><p>Andrea smiled, a little, in return. It is hard not to when you receive a genuine compliment. </p><p>“She does. Believe me. So Sheldon, love me, and let me go, OK?”</p><p>There was a long pause and then Sheldon gave a big shrug of her thin shoulders, and ran her fingers through her hair.</p><p>“Yes, go. Go back into your charmed life, and write more beautiful, thoughtful books. I will watch your progress from afar, but I won’t try to kidnap you or do anything stupid to hurt those you love. I give you my word.”</p><p>“Thank-you.”</p><p>Andy stood up. She hadn’t even reached the point of ordering a coffee, but it was time to go.</p><p>“You could maybe write something different too.  Why not try a new central character, and turn to the possibility of happier endings?  It’s your world. You can populate it with just who you choose, control it how you want. How about it?”</p><p>Sheldon said, “Perhaps. I’ll give it some thought. Oh, and Andy, in future, if we ever meet again, you may call me Karen.”</p><p>“Thanks Karen, I will. Goodbye.”</p><p>Andy turned from the table, so almost missed the next whispered phrase.</p><p>“Although, of course, I wasn’t born a Karen…”</p><p>“What!?”</p><p>And the dark, tired eyes of the woman opposite her crinkled into a rueful smile. </p><p>“That’ll keep you wondering, won’t it? Anyway, good luck, Andy- girl. Take care.”</p><p>“Take care yourself,” and Andy walked away from the table without looking back. </p><p>She had the closure she wanted, and yet…maybe the story with Sheldon/Karen whoever wasn’t finished, and maybe it never would be. But for now, she felt Miranda and their family were safe, and that was really her only concern.</p>
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<a name="section0020"><h2>20. A Birthday at the Beach</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Miranda is sitting on a beach, looking back, looking forwards, and looking at Andrea. Nothing new then ... almost there, folks. This is a quiet interlude, before the big finale.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chapter 20</p><p>Miranda turned her face up to the sun and closed her eyes. Even in January she had been careful to smooth on a good amount of sun-blocker, but the un- deniable pleasure of winter warmth felt especially great against the sound of gently lapping waves. It soothed her spirit, and helped her fully enjoy their day on the beach in Laguna, Southern California at its best… </p><p>It was her fifty-sixth birthday today, and yes, they had come west to spend it with Lee and Gloria again, after far too long a gap between visits with such good and tested friends. It had been a long, hard winter in New York so far, especially for Andy who had been  ill with morning sickness almost daily now since late October, and the invitation hadn’t been hard to accept. </p><p>Of course, they had Amelia with them, who adored everything to do with the sea-side. The twins were deep into school activities so had stayed in New York, but Amelia was enough of a floor-show for anyone, and kept both her parents fully occupied and their hosts astonished to see so much energy emanating from such a little person.</p><p>“Do her batteries never wind down?” Gloria had asked at the end of their first full day, and Miranda remembered her friends had never raised children. Having a little one in the house was a whole new experience for them, and they’d had a reality check when they realised their chaotic piles of magazines and general artistic clutter didn’t fare well against the unstoppable force of a cheerful two-year-old dancing around them.</p><p> Amelia hadn’t lost her taste for climbing and saw the heaps of old New Yorker and Smithsonian magazines all over the house as created just for her, providing useful foothills from which to attempt the floor to ceiling bookcases, the tops of which were her real goal. Both Andrea and Miranda were terrified until Lee assured them the bookcases were all screwed firmly to the wall. Books themselves she also found fascinating, and now she could talk more fluently, she’d learned a few of her favourites off by heart and pretended to read them, reciting the stories as the pages were turned for her. </p><p>Now, down on the central beach in Laguna she was busy building a sandcastle complex, while Miranda kept one eagle eye on her, and the other on Andy, who was off swimming beyond the breakers in a wetsuit.  She looked like a creature of the sea, a dark mermaid in her body-fitting black suit, and at four months, her pregnancy was just beginning to show. </p><p>Miranda enjoyed the view. She still lusted after Andrea like a love-sick teenage boy, and the sight of her breasts and belly showing a slight swelling of pregnancy raised Miranda’s libido quite ridiculously. </p><p>She was now completely through the menopause, helped by the application of discreet hormone replacement patches for the last five months, so the hot flashes and headaches had subsided, but the absence of periods certainly hadn’t inhibited her sex-drive. She felt powerful and poised and was today determined to be positive about yet another year slipping by. Every birthday should be a cause for celebration, she thought, and this one surely more than most.</p><p>She and Andrea had achieved so much in the last six months, and in the next six months they would have another member of the family. Miranda lay back on her lounger and thought of everything that had happened and offered  a little prayer of thanks to whoever was looking after them.  </p><p>They were now through the terrors of the first trimester when a donated egg and artificially inseminated sperm could be so often lost, and Andrea was regaining her old bloom. Their summer baby was finally on its way. </p><p>Of course, anything connected to Charlie, her ‘new’ sister, had to be larger than life, and they had had an interesting time making the connection, not only with her, but with her beautiful but painfully insecure partner, Caroline. Caroline hadn’t prevented Charlie donating eggs, especially when the low risk to her partner’s health was fully explained, but she was still nervous.</p><p>“I know just how much she wanted children, but I’m so frightened of losing her if she carried one herself. My older sister died from eclampsia. I couldn’t cope if anything happened to Charlie. She has high blood pressure already and gall bladder problems.”</p><p>This exchange had happened back in July when they had all spent ten days together in London. Miranda privately thought a far bigger risk to Charlie’s health was good old-fashioned obesity. If she shed fifty pounds in weight then her blood pressure problems would probably disappear with them. But she wasn’t going to start preaching. She guessed many people had already pointed this out to Charlie, and if she was going to lose weight and get fit, then she needed to do it for herself, when she had finally decided to cherish her body.</p><p>Miranda also quickly saw that Charlie had the classic clown’s syndrome, of being happy as a bird on the outside, but harbouring deep chasms of sadness within. She made people laugh for a living, and was hugely successful at it, but as she opened up to Miranda about all their family, and told endless stories, especially about the Jewishness of her upbringing and the cleverness and theatricality of the family, she also shared her need for acceptance and longing for closer connection. </p><p>Five years before, Miranda would have been useless to her, as a confidant or a sister, she knew that. She said so to Charlie one day with Andrea present. </p><p>“I would have been hell to know then. I was a driven, sadistic dragon of a boss, and I thrived on negativity. I got my kicks destroying people’s self-confidence, and no day was complete until I had made at least three people cry.”</p><p>“No, you’re kidding. You’re my dream big sister. I can’t believe you.”</p><p>“Well, ask my Andrea here. She experienced the worst of me in those days. She saved me though. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have come through what I later came to see and understand was a walking break-down. I was wound up so tightly with unresolved anger and fears I could barely function.”</p><p>Charlie listened and appeared to believe her, but she changed the subject to something more positive.</p><p>“How did you meet? Did you say Andrea used to work for you? I think that’s very romantic.”</p><p>Miranda and Andy both broke into laughter together.</p><p>“You tell her,” said Miranda.</p><p>“No, I love your version of it better,” replied Andrea.</p><p>Miranda sat back on the couch and let Andrea rest her head in her lap, as she ran her fingers through her wife’s long glossy waves.</p><p>“Well, it all started when Andrea suggested we ran a piece on the NYPD and a pair of theatrical hand-cuffs turned up and were left out on the desk in the office…”</p><p>“No, no, that’s not right. It really all started the day I walked into the Elias-Clarke building…”</p><p>But, despite their varying accounts, Miranda and Andy between them managed to give Charlie and Caroline the full story of their romance, and it amused their new audience just as much as anyone else who had heard it. Charlie and Caroline then told them their equally unlikely tale of how two such different people fell in love, and by the end of their visit to London the two couples were very close, close enough for Andrea to feel completely natural about carrying Charlie’s egg to make a baby.</p><p>That had happened in early October, after a long series of tests and health checks had been carried out, but working round Andrea’s and Charlie’s ovulation cycles had been tiring and complex. But her brother Ted’s straightforward advice and willingness to co-operate had helped immensely, and in the end, because there were no underlying fertility problems in any of the parties, it happened as smoothly as one could hope for. Charlie and Caroline had visited New York for the procedure, and again to spend Christmas holidays with them. </p><p>It turned into a very pleasant multi-faith event, centred mostly round Amelia, who had been brought into all the wonder of Santamania at her nursery school, and was completely into all the stories. Andrea, who was deeply sentimental about all the Christmas nonsenses, indulged her totally, even though the whole holiday period was wrecked for her by hardly being able to eat anything except dry toast and vitamin pills.</p><p>Now, another month on though, Andrea’s nausea was easing and Miranda felt more confident than she had done since they had first discussed the idea of their next child. Andrea stepped out of the water and came up the beach towards towards her, water streaming from her wetsuit and from her hair. She looked like a goddess emerging from the waves.</p><p>Miranda said nothing, simply passed her a large towel.</p><p>“Brisk, but worth it,” said Andy, drying the worst of the sea water from her hair. “You were right to suggest wearing a wetsuit. I’m growing less brave in my old age. Might you come in next time? Nothing beats ocean swimming.”</p><p>Miranda said, “I’m better employed looking after our daughter. January, even as far south as this, is rather early in the year for swimming in the Pacific.”</p><p>“If we had gone to Hawaii…”</p><p>“Too long a flight for such a little one. And it’s good we could be with Lee and Gloria, don’t you think?”</p><p>“Yes, I do. Especially the way Lee is looking these days…”</p><p>“Yes. You see it too. She’s suddenly aged. Her mind isn’t as sharp, and she sometimes looks lost. I worry that having us in the house is a little too much for her.”</p><p>“Gloria must worry.”</p><p>“Yes, I know she does. At least they are married now, and she can take out power of attorney. But it must be hard.”</p><p>“I envy them, being together so long. Will we have as many years together?”</p><p>“I certainly hope so, and more. I’m a tough old bird. You won’t get rid of me that easily. “</p><p>“When you are eighty-eight, I will be sixty-four.”</p><p>“Eighty-eight! I am banking on hitting a century.”</p><p>“Well then I will be…” Andrea flopped down on the sand beside her, and made a towel pillow for her head. “I will be seventy-six. You might have to push me about in my wheel-chair by then.”</p><p>“Nonsense. Seventy is the new fifty. I feel better today than I have ever done, and when you finally grow up and get some maturity, you’ll understand why.” Miranda slipped in a little compliment here. “Just looking at you knocks ten years off me. ‘You make me feel so young… you make me feel as though Spring has sprung.’ She had burst into song, remembering the old ballad, and made Amelia look up from her digging endeavours with a grin.</p><p>Miranda felt Andy’s hand slip into hers, and a light squeeze against her wedding and engagement rings, neither of which had ever left her finger since their wedding day.</p><p>“Happy birthday, darling,” whispered Andy. “I’ve given you some gifts already, but your real present will happen tonight.”</p><p>“Oh yes? May one enquire…?”</p><p>“One may, Madame. But the only clue I will give you right now is to say how happy I am Gloria and Lee sleep at the other end of their house, and that there is good sound-proofing.”</p><p>Miranda looked into her eyes, those deep chocolate, irresistibly teasing eyes, and decided not to dig any further. She lay back on her own beach pillow and closed her eyes again. The sun was warming up every minute and she simply enjoyed being passively happy under its comforting rays. </p><p>“Watch Melie doesn’t wander off,” she murmured, her hand still in Andrea’s, and then fell asleep in her wife’s tender care and ever-present love.</p>
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<a name="section0021"><h2>21. The hottest day of the year</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Falling out...and falling over.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Four weeks before their baby daughter was due to enter the world Miranda and Andrea fell out. It was over a silly argument about the child’s name, nothing really, thought Andrea, not in the bigger scheme of things. But it became so heated, they ended up shouting at each other and sleeping on the edges of the bed, instead of cuddling up together in the middle. Next morning Miranda slammed the bathroom door as she stormed off to take a shower, and Andrea, not to be outdone, slammed their bedroom door just as vigorously in reply and marched into the guest room bathroom to have a much-needed pee. </p><p>	They met later, down in the kitchen, something they could hardly avoid if they wanted any breakfast and to see their children, two of whom were calmly eating melon and strawberry fruit-cups with Greek yoghurt, and one of whom was negotiating her way round a chocolate pancake. </p><p>Amelia might now be three but eating any meal without transferring large quantities of it to her face and clothes still posed problems. Cara stood at the stove, making more pancakes, stoical in the hot summer weather, as Andrea entered the room first, already in pain from struggling down two flights of stairs, and collapsed onto the nearest chair.</p><p>	“What’s with all the door-slamming?” enquired Caroline, raising an eyebrow in an exact take-off of one of Miranda’s signature expressions.  She was sweet sixteen and a peach poised for the picking, elegant and cool in the latest spring look. Miranda couldn’t have wished for a more fashion- conscious child, or one with better natural taste in what ‘look’ might work, and what wouldn’t. </p><p>	Having reached the point in her school career where she would very soon have to describe between music and fine art as a major at college, Caroline would soon surprise them all by saying she wanted to work in fashion-design and ask if she could go to London to study there.</p><p>	Cassidy, equally sweet and equally just turned sixteen, was in no way elegant nor cool. That morning she had tossed on some old denim cut off shorts and a washed-out Tee and was about to head over to the riding stables where she kept her horse. </p><p>For Cassidy, advanced algebra, the planet Mars and her horse Monty were the three great passions of life. And whereas Caroline’s interest in horses and horseback riding had faded over the last few years, hers had intensified. </p><p>Patches, Andy’s old pony who had first taught her to ride out in the Sachs’ Ohio ranch had finally died aged twenty-nine, and Cassie’s grief over his passing had been so overwhelming, that Miranda’s resistance had melted away under its intensity. So Cassie had been given her heart’s desire and now finally owned her own mount.  Monty was a retired thoroughbred racehorse with a very calm and kind face, who enjoyed learning to jump and do dressage and all the things Cassie wanted to teach him. They were definitely best mates.</p><p>Monty lived at a New York riding stables centre on a half-livery basis, but so far Cassie had been conscientious to the point of obsession about going over there to care for him. Her mother had bought the horse, and her father, Geoff,  as soon as she had her license, had bought her a car so she could drive the few miles there and back on her own. </p><p>Miranda knew the car had cost far more than the horse, but felt she paid more than her share in their joint present, by suffering the terrors she felt every day, knowing Cassie was behind its wheel braving the Manhattan traffic. </p><p>Cassidy said, “Yeah, is anything the matter? What’s up with you two? You never fight. Was Mom mean because you look like an elephant?” she asked now, echoing her twin sister.</p><p>“Thanks, Cass. That’s just the encouragement I need. But no, your Mom wasn’t mean. She is just so stubborn, and she doesn’t understand poetic cadence.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Listen, ‘Caroline, and Cassidy, Amelia and Helena’. Doesn’t that sound a heap better than “Caroline, Cassidy, Amelia and Helen.’?”</p><p>All four of the ladies in the kitchen looked at her in blank astonishment. Then Caroline said,<br/>
“So…. All the shouting upstairs last night and this morning… it was just about whether Helen should be Helen or Helena?”</p><p>Andrea heard what she was saying, and saw how trivial the dispute might appear to the uninitiated in iambic pentameters. </p><p>“It’s important. The way the name moves, the cadence of it.”</p><p>“But you always say it doesn’t matter when Mom wants to call you Andrea all the time. You want her say Andy instead though, which has no poetic cadence at all.” Caroline fixed Andy with her logical stare. </p><p>“Besides,” said Cassidy, “Wasn’t Helen Mom’s mother’s name, not Helena? Isn’t that why she wants to call the baby Helen?”</p><p>Andrea knew this was true, and of course she would let Miranda call their little one Helen or Mabel or whatever she wanted. It was just Miranda’s high-handed dismissal of her point of view which had irked her, and the night being so hot and sleepless and her body feeling like a vast vat of boiling oil about to spill over, and her back aching fit to . . . </p><p>“Here you are kid,” said Cara, quietly passing her a coffee and two mild painkillers. “Not long now. Hang in there. You’ve done so well. We’re all proud of you, aren’t we girls?”</p><p>“Poor Mama,” said Amelia, patting her kindly with a chocolatey paw. “Would you like my pancake?” and generously offered her half a chocolate smothered crepe, complete with little teeth marks across it.</p><p>Andrea felt so touched by these simple acts of kindness, that she burst into floods of tears, just as Miranda came into the room. A cold shower and ten minutes alone to reflect had already worked their magic on Miranda’s bad temper, and the sight of Andy sobbing onto the breakfast table melted her own hardened attitude over their chosen name.</p><p>“Andy, sweetie, I’m sorry I was cross. Don’t cry!” She came over and knelt down next to Andrea’s chair, lifting a napkin to dry her eyes and putting her arm round her wife’s pretty, bulky frame. “Of course we can call her Helena if you think it sounds better. I don’t mind. I really don’t!”</p><p>Andrea shook her head. “No, no, Helen. It has to be Helen. It was your mother’s name. it’s beautiful.”</p><p>“Helena!” Miranda shook her head, determined to be the one to give way.</p><p>“No, Helen!”  Andrea didn’t want to be the loser in the magnanimity stakes.</p><p>Caroline put a hand on each of their shoulders.</p><p>“Woah there, cowboys… Why not just call her Jenny if Helen is going to cause so much fuss…”</p><p>Andrea mopped her eyes and managed a tiny smile. “No, I’m sorry. I was just thinking of Mid-summer Night’s dream. And we’ve gone through so many names already. But we always said we would call her after your mother if she was a girl, and I like Helen. I really do. I don’t know why I suddenly became so worked up over an extra syllable. It must be my hormones.”</p><p>“We rarely quarrel. I hate it when we do,” whispered Miranda, gazing into her beloved’s teary eyes.</p><p>“So do I. Can we make it the last for this year?” and Andy leaned sideways and kissed her. Miranda responded, for longer. She still felt competitive, and secretly happy she could win, either way.</p><p>“You two!” sighed Cara. “I’ve never known such a pair of love-birds. What can I fix you both for breakfast?”</p><p>“Pancakes!” shouted Amelia. “With chocolate!” </p><p> </p><p>Andy could hardly fit behind the wheel of the car, but she had a sudden nesting desire to go looking at layettes in Bloomingdales later that morning. The store would be air-conditioned, so she decided to abandon all attempts at writing and go down-town. thinking she could take a cab if Roy was too busy.</p><p>Miranda’s wonderful gift of all those designer maternity clothes bought before Amelia was born had come into their own yet again, and Andy knew she looked as OK as any expectant mother in their ninth month might look, but she still felt the heat, and after rifling through some pretty nursery fripperies, and buying far more than she needed, she soon regretted it and sat down on a chair near the entrance of the store to call for a cab to get her home. She didn’t feel too good and was glad to rest. She had just booked a cab to come in fifteen minutes when a voice she surely recognised boomed from behind her.</p><p>“Andy! Andy Sachs. What brings you down among the hoi-poloi? It must be a more than a year… Am I allowed to say Hi at least?”</p><p>Andy swirled round and looked straight into Sheldon’s face. They exchanged astonished looks, but Sheldon’s widened into incredulity when she saw Andy’s bulk and her condition. Even with all the swathes of silk, it was impossible to hide. </p><p>“You’re…!”</p><p>“I am,” Andy replied, with a wry smile.</p><p>She was crazily tempted to apologise, as if she had anything to apologise to Sheldon for. And besides, novel number three was pretty much in the bag. She had already finished a first draft and sent it off to her on-line beta-readers. Even a taskmaster like Sheldon should be proud of such an achievement.</p><p>She indicated the chair opposite. Bloomingdales showed pity on its customers occasionally. Sheldon took up the offer of a seat, and also took in Andrea, observing her properly now.</p><p>“You look very well…considering. When are you due?”</p><p>“End of July, in about three weeks. But Amelia was early, so this one might be as well. I feel ready to pop any time.”</p><p>“I won’t ask how you both conceived…”</p><p>“No, better not!  Instead, tell me how you’ve been, Sheldon. Are you feeling better these days? Is your imagination less homicidal?”</p><p>Sheldon pushed her hands through her hair in the characteristic way she had, and looked at Andy somewhat quizzically, as if she was wondering how much to say. Then she responded.</p><p>“Yes, slowly, slowly. The body count in my latest two books was disappointingly low. I do feel better. I have found a good female therapist, one I can trust. She counsels army vets, but works with me online. One thing she said which really helped was that ‘it’ doesn’t start with oneself, that there is a thing called generational trauma, sometimes going back three or four generations, which can affect one’s DNA somehow. She recommended a book on the subject. I’m doing a lot of reading to understand why I can’t, or couldn’t forgive my father when I was eighteen. Why I broke off with my entire family and have never had the courage to reconnect. Why I invested so much in Gloria.”</p><p>“That’s very sad. I hope you do find resolution,” said Andy, focussing more and more on her own aches and pains. They weren’t so much Braxton-Hicks precursors to labour pain, as a general whole-body pain which came up from her ankles and climbed up her spine. She really didn’t feel good, and wished Miranda was there beside her instead of Sheldon.</p><p>“Sorry, I have to go outside and wait for the cab. They won’t wait more than a few seconds.”</p><p>“You look very flushed. I’ll wait with you until it comes.”</p><p>“O.K. Thanks.” Andy was glad to have anyone with her on the crowded sidewalk. “I do feel strangely . . .”</p><p>And the paving stones suddenly swooped up to meet her, as she passed out at the front entrance of Bloomingdales, on the hottest day of the year so far. She hit the ground with a nasty whack and banged her head on the concrete . . . </p><p>. . . Which was why Miranda, summoned away from a high-level meeting with members of her finance team, arrived at the Presbyterian Hospital in a complete state of panic half an hour later, only to find Sheldon Murphy sitting in the crowded emergency room waiting area. She was guarding Andrea’s purse and several assorted Bloomingdales bags of baby clothes, and looked troubled.</p><p> The two women stared at each other in blank acknowledgement, and neither knew how to speak first. Both seemed to have lost any ability to say a single word. Then from inside the emergency room, they heard a loud scream. </p><p>“Andrea!” cried Miranda, and almost tripped as she ran forwards through the swinging doors. And Sheldon, without any hesitation, followed right behind her.</p>
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<a name="section0022"><h2>22. ' The sunshine of their smile'</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Spoiler alert!   Miranda versus hospital protocol. You know how that normally goes. But this time, well, it turns out better than most. A long chapter with a big surprise, a little surprise and a very happy ending. I hope you all enjoy it.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Miranda pushed aside the heavy rubber doors to head in a direct trajectory towards the sound of her wife’s scream, only to find her way blocked immediately by a large medic holding a clipboard coming in the opposite direction.</p><p>	“Ah, Mrs Priestly? I was coming to look for you. I need you to sign the consent form for your daughter to go into surgery. . . “</p><p>	“My daughter?”</p><p>	Miranda looked daggers at the woman. This still happened far too often to be the least bit amusing, even though Andy kept begging her to see the funny side.</p><p>	“She is my wife, not my daughter. And I need to see her, now. What has happened exactly and why will she need surgery?”</p><p>	The doctor looked a little apologetic for her slip-up, not much, but a little.</p><p>	“She had a nasty fall which precipitated early labour and we are worried there is might be an injury to the uterus, possibly a tear on the placenta. The baby needs to be removed as soon as possible by a Caesarean section, or the situation could be life-threatening.”</p><p>	“For my wife, or for the baby?”</p><p>	“Possibly both. I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>	On hearing those words, Miranda wondered if she would pass out herself, from the sheer shock and anxiety of the moment, but gritted her teeth, and managed to say, “Let me see her. Then I’ll sign. Of course I’ll sign. I’ll sign anything if it will help.”</p><p>	The doctor stepped back and pointed down a line of narrow cubicles.</p><p>	“Just in there. The third on the left.”  Then as Miranda rushed past her, she looked back at Sheldon. “And who are you? If she’s the wife, are you the mother?”</p><p>	Sheldon scoffed at that. “Of course not. I’m…I’m… Oh,” and she searched around to find a suitable relationship which would permit her to stay. “I’m the aunt.”</p><p>	“Right well, go on in as well then. It’s better than blocking up the corridor.” </p><p>And so she followed Miranda into Andy’s cubicle. It was already rather full of people.  Andy, still fully dressed, but with her beautiful shantung silk dress now torn and dirty, lay on a gurney clutching at her abdomen in obvious pain as a definite contraction gripped her belly.</p><p>	The emergency room doctor was trying to attach her to a blood-pressure and heartrate monitor and a nurse was mopping at a nasty cut on her forehead where she had hit her head when she had fainted.</p><p>	Miranda barged through and took her beloved’s hand.</p><p>	“Andy, I’m here. I’m here now. It will all be OK. Don’t panic.”</p><p>	“My baby. . . our baby!” gasped Andy, only too aware of the dire straits she was in.</p><p>	“They are going to do a C-section, honey. They say it’s for the best. Are you OK with that? I need to sign as your next of kin. . .”</p><p>	Andy tossed on the gurney, her face screwed up against another contraction. </p><p>	“Yes. . .but it’s still early. Will she be all right?  And I so wanted it to be slow and relaxed this time, not like Amel . . . Aargh!”</p><p>	“Right, clear the room. We’re going through to obstetrics and then into theatre immediately!”</p><p>	The senior doctor on the scene raised her voice and said it with such authority, that everyone, including Miranda, did as they were told and backed out of the cubicle. Miranda hurriedly signed the paperwork thrust in front of her, and as she was handing it back, saw her wife being whisked away on her gurney through yet another set of doors into the nether regions of the hospital.</p><p>	“Where has she gone? I need to be there with her!”</p><p>She and Sheldon were left standing together, and turned to the remaining health-care worker for some information.</p><p>	She said “You can’t go that way. It’s for staff only. If you go back to the main entrance and follow the signing to the obstetrics wing, then you can wait for her at the other end. You can’t be there for the birth unfortunately as it’s an emergency and you wouldn’t have time to scrub up and put on the gowns. But your daughter will be OK, don’t worry.”</p><p>	This piece of fatuous optimism did nothing to improve Miranda’s mood, added to hearing yet another moron assume she was Andy’s mother. She was about to tear a strip off the girl, when Sheldon put a hand on her arm and hissed “Don’t, Miranda!. it would just be a waste of time. Let’s go the long way round if we have to. We’d better get going now.”</p><p>	The cheerful idiot of a nurse smiled encouragingly at the woman she obviously thought was some crazy hysteric. “Yeah, that’s right. You do as your sister says. It takes fifteen minutes to get to the right floor, even on a good day.”</p><p>	“She is not my sister!” shrieked Miranda, wondering how Sheldon Murphy was even able to be present with her in this most intimate of family crisises. “Whatever gave you that stupid…?”</p><p>	“Come on!” urged Sheldon. “Don’t you want to be within earshot of your baby’s first cry. Miranda! Let’s get going! Now! Move!”</p><p>	And Miranda let herself be chivvied along, back out of the emergency room entrance and into a maze of endless corridors. The hospital was like some sort of sci-fi urban jungle, and her heart and mind were in such turmoil, that she let Sheldon do the navigating and followed her lead.</p><p>	After a few minutes of rapid walking, they were at least able to see they were heading for the right department and Miranda was able to think more clearly. She turned to the tall, angular woman just in front of her, and said, “I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong, Sheldon. But what the hell were you doing with Andy when she fell at Bloomingdales? Has she been seeing you?”</p><p>	She felt ashamed to even ask, because she was sure Andy would have told her of any more assignations with Sheldon, but her mind was set at ease by the blunt response.</p><p>“Of course not! Didn’t you ask and didn’t she agree to drop all connection between us? No, it was just a fluke. I saw her in the foyer, and she looked very flushed and ill. I simply waited with her for a taxi to come and then she suddenly fainted. I called 911 immediately, and it was I who called Runway as well. I figured with any luck you’d be there, and would want to be with her.”</p><p>	“Well, thank you. I am grateful, truly. And Sheldon”. . .  this was certainly not the best time or place, but as someone who found it very hard to apologise for anything, Miranda guessed a hospital corridor could serve as well as anywhere. . .  “I am truly sorry for all the hurt I caused you thirty-two years ago.  I was very young then and heedless, and it was my first proper gay affair. I never thought of the other person in the triangle, how you might feel. I just felt embarrassed when you nearly caught me in Gloria’s apartment.”</p><p>	Sheldon slowed her power walk to a much slower pace. “Thanks. That means something. It really does. And let’s try to move on and not worry anymore about what happened all those years ago. It needn’t affect any future friendship we might be able to string together.”</p><p>	“Do you think we could, in the future? For Andy’s sake. I know she admires you.”  </p><p>Miranda’s heart gave a nasty lurch inside her chest, as she realised that Andy, nor their baby may not even have a future, and a broken sob came out of her, even as she saw the entrance to the obstetrics wing straight ahead of them.</p><p>	Sheldon, who had obviously taken on the role of honorary aunt, regardless of any other connection, took her arm firmly and said, “That will be my greatest pleasure. Now let’s go and see this baby of yours as it comes into the world.”</p><p>	The obstetrics ward was a much quieter place than the accident and emergency suite on the ground floor, and a soft-shoed nurse who ushered them into a waiting room showed them how to work the coffee machine.</p><p>	“I’ll go and find out exactly what’s happening with regard to the C-section,” she said, and disappeared. Miranda paced up and down like an expectant father, even though she had been present at other people’s deliveries and had then been the picture of calm. </p><p> Sheldon made them both a coffee, and handed her one. “It looks hot and strong, at least, not the usual hospital swill. Were your other children born here?”</p><p>	“Amelia, yes, but not my twins. They were born in a private clinic on Long Island. My ex-husband and I had a house in the Hamptons for some years, and they were born there.”</p><p>	They both sat down on the comfortable seats in the waiting room.</p><p>“So tell me, if you care to, how this little one came about? Who was the sperm donor?”</p><p> </p><p>Miranda took in a deep breath and said, “It’s complicated. Andy’s brother fathered the baby. He’s a paediatrician in Ohio and had no issues with the idea at all. But then we needed a viable egg but we knew my fertility galloped away over the horizon last year. So…”  </p><p> And here Miranda realised just how significant Sheldon had been in their story. . . “Do you remember the book Andy came round to borrow off you, the one you reviewed last year about the Jewish musician called Joseph Princhek?”</p><p>	Sheldon nodded. “I do.” Her face closed up slightly as if she was trying to suppress something.</p><p>	“Well, that was a life-changing event for me. How could you have known, but it put me in touch with a family I’d never known.”</p><p>	“What?!”</p><p>Now Sheldon looked most alarmed.</p><p>	“Yes, I suspected, and it was subsequently proved by a DNA test, that I was the “Lost Child” in the title. I was the daughter of the little Irish maid he had the affair with. Over the last twelve months I’ve been getting to know nearly all my half brothers and sisters, and here’s the point of the story. I have a younger sister called Charlotte, who is in a gay relationship, like me, and who donated her eggs so our baby could come from both sides of our family.”</p><p>	Sheldon’s face turned to stone, then blushed pink and then collapsed into a complete mess of emotion. She said in a voice most unlike her usual clipped Yankee accent,</p><p>	“She was a little girl, named Charlotte Beatrice, after her mother…”</p><p>	“Yes. Only now her stage name is Charlie B, and she’s an award-winning stand-up comic.  But how do you…?”</p><p>	Miranda, swept up in her own emotional turmoil, worrying about Andy and prattling on to keep her mind off her anxieties, suddenly absorbed Sheldon’s distress, and what she might be saying.</p><p>	“How . . .? Do you know the Princhek family well, Sheldon? Is that why you wrote the review?”</p><p>	Sheldon appeared pole-axed, but said nothing. She may have answered eventually, but at that moment the helpful nurse returned and opened the door. “You can come through now, ladies, and meet your new daughter. She’s a beauty! Her Mom is still out of it.  - they gave her a general anaesthetic because she was injured when she came in and needed some repair work doing. But she’ll be fine, and back with us all very soon.”</p><p> 	 Miranda felt a huge wave of relief pass through her brain, and she trembled with released emotion. She followed the nurse into a recovery room and stood in awe as a very tiny little person with a shock of black hair and the most amazing pair of blue eyes was handed to her, wrapped up like a parcel in a rectangle of soft hospital towelling. </p><p>	“Are you her mother’s partner?” asked the midwife. “Do you have a name yet?”</p><p>	“Helena,” said Miranda, with absolute certainty. “And yes, I’m her other mother, and this” as she turned to Sheldon, “this person next to me, I believe, is her aunt, her aunt Susanna.” She paused and looked enquiringly at her companion for confirmation.</p><p> “I am right about that, aren’t I, Sheldon?”</p><p>	And Sheldon came forward and held out a finger to be grasped by a tiny hand.  She nodded, too full of emotion to seemingly say a word. But then she cleared her throat and finally said,</p><p>	“No one has called me that for forty-five years. But yes, I was once Susanna Princhek, and if this is partly my sister Charlotte’s baby, then I am, indeed little Helena’s aunt.”</p><p>	 The mid-wife smiled politely, without a clue what these people were talking about. She had grown used to complicated family set-ups in her job, but at least the women didn’t seem about to turn violently on each other, as happened all too frequently when two rival dads turned up at a delivery.</p><p>	“We just need to run some checks and get her weighed. Though she looks a good weight for a Premmie.”</p><p>	“Less than four weeks premature.  That’s not too bad surely? But was she damaged by Andy’s fall at all?” asked Miranda, loathe to hand her precious baby back to any stranger.</p><p>	“She looks fine. But let’s just get her checked over. Look, here comes your wife now. Let me take the wee one away briefly while you congratulate Andrea.”</p><p> </p><p>	Andrea was still heavily under the influence of the anaesthetic, and could hardly believe what had happened, and how the day had turned out. She looked up at Miranda in delighted wonder and gripped her hand.</p><p>	“They tell me we have a daughter, while I slept. How is that possible?  Have you seen her? What does she look like?”</p><p>	“She’s adorable, and she’ll come back to us soon, darling.  How are you feeling my love?”</p><p>	“Like I’ve been run over by a bus, but I can’t feel the actual cut. I expect that will start to hurt like hell later though.”</p><p>	“Not if we do our job properly,” said a senior nurse who was re-connecting her to the monitors above the bed. “We’ll try and make sure you have a good night’s rest, and eventually go home with lots of appropriate pain-relief.”</p><p>	“When can I take them both home?” asked Miranda.</p><p>	“Even in these days, we’d like her to have a good forty-eight hours here. The doctor will fill you in with all the details, but there were some complications.”</p><p>	“Like what?” Andy was suddenly worried for her child.</p><p>	“Oh, nothing serious. And your baby is fine.  But have you been suffering from severe pre-menstrual cramps and heavy bleeding in recent years? The surgeons took out some pretty sizeable fibroids after they delivered the baby. I’m sure you’ll feel the better for having them removed.”</p><p>Andy flopped back on the pillows. “Wow. I knew there must be a reason for the increased pain. I understand. But where’s my baby? I want to nurse her. I can feel the milk coming in even now.”</p><p>And the nurse nodded and went away to find the child.</p><p>Andrea then remembered and realised.</p><p>“Sheldon, you’re still here! Have you stayed all this time?  That’s very good of you. Have you and Miranda had a chance to make up while you’ve been waiting?”</p><p>Sheldon still stood silently at the end of the bed, obviously processing so many emotions, she wasn’t up to dialogue. But Miranda, whose agile mind had already done its own work, felt confident enough to say,<br/>
“Andy, darling. Sheldon is my sister. And Charlie’s. And Daniel’s and all the other Princheks’ in London. We don’t know yet what caused the terrible rift between them, or why she ran away at eighteen. But a miracle has brought us together, and she was there for you today. If it wasn’t for her prompt action, you and Helena might not be here. I will never be out of her debt.”</p><p>Andy’s face showed her astonishment. “I don’t believe it! Really? Why does our life always seem to resemble a novel? This is amazing!”</p><p>Sheldon sat down on the chair beside the bed, and as the nurse returned with Baby Helena, she started to tell her side of the story. Helena latched onto Andrea’s nipple like a docking spaceship and started to suck. </p><p> </p><p>Miranda took pictures on her phone and sent them through with a message of joy and surprise news to the twins, to Cara and all her family and friends, in fact everyone else on her private phone list. She was a very proud parent. </p><p>And then they both quietly listened to the story of another lost child, as Sheldon told her story.</p><p>“I was the eldest daughter and a rebellious child from the first. By the time I was seventeen we already had seven of us in the family, and I couldn’t stand the fact that my mother seemed so worn down and perpetually pregnant, and my parents weren’t even happy together.  </p><p>“I had always adored my father, put him on a pedestal and thought he could do no wrong. But eventually I developed a real antipathy towards him. His mind seemed away in the clouds half the time, and only lived for his music, or so I thought. And my mother and I never got on.</p><p>“Then one night I heard them fighting in their bedroom and my mother saying something like, “That little whore at the school? You’ve been spraying your seed around again, even out of this house? I’ll never forgive you. Never! Get out! Go on, get out and find your mistress. See how she likes looking after you!”</p><p>“Then my father said, “She’s dead. She died apparently when the child was four. That’s all they would tell me. I went round there, to the old address. Daniel came with me. But the old grandmother wouldn’t tell me anything, not even her married name. I’ve lost her and I lost her child, my lovely Helen’s child. She was the only woman I ever really loved. I think you know that, that our marriage was arranged by your father, and I was pushed into it.”</p><p>“I knew then that I couldn’t stand to be in their house any longer. It was toxic. I fled, first to a friend, then to a older cousin I discovered over in Australia. Then when I was twenty-one, the cousin died and left me a few thousand dollars. I knew the family wanted to trace me, but I had hardened so much and fed on all my bad memories and resentments that I just couldn’t reconnect. </p><p>“That year I dropped all ties with my family and came to the States and took on a new name. I always enjoyed word puzzles so I created a name Karen Punchiness which was an anagram of Susanna Princhek. I worked as a journalist on the crime beat and started writing out my angst into crime fiction. But I also enjoyed writing feature articles, which led me eventually to the New Yorker, and to Gloria. The rest you know, more or less.”</p><p>She seemed to have run out of steam, and sat back, completely drained. Miranda had to know more though. </p><p>“But our father’s book? How come you came to review it? What effect did it have on you? You said it was just in a stack of books sent through for you. It must have been mind-blowing to read about your own father like that. And you wrote such a positive review.”</p><p>Sheldon nodded. “I think it was an angelic message that sent me that book. It has taken me a full twelve months to deal with the emotions it raised in me. But it, and finding you Andy and your writing, and what you said to me that last meeting we had … about forgiveness, it made me forgive my father, my mother and yes, maybe myself a little for abandoning them all. But I never, not in a thousand years, would have guessed how closely Miranda and I are connected. In this great big metropolis of New York, who could imagine we’d be here sitting beside the same bed, celebrating the birth of the baby which ties us together forever.”</p><p>Andrea moved Helena from right to left breast, and complacently observed them both in a milky haze of happiness. </p><p>“Of course, I see it so plainly now that you two are sisters. You both have the same habit of nibbling your specs, and running your fingers through your hair. And you both like hot coffee and hate bad grammar, and get especially cross when I say ‘stuff’.” She laughed and looked at them both fondly. </p><p>Sheldon reached over and squeezed her hand.  “I think having you as a sister-in-law might just be my biggest joy out of all this. I am still in complete shock though.I can’t believe  I’m related to the great and glamorous Miranda Priestly.”</p><p>“It will take time. Time to adjust and connect. Can we help you reconnect with Daniel and Charlie, and the others? I know it’s their dearest wish,” said Miranda.  </p><p>“Give me time,” said Sheldon, quietly. “Just give me a little more time. I am sure they will all hate me, after all these years of ignoring them all, of not even going to my parents’ funerals.”</p><p>“When we take Helena to meet her London family, come with us,” said Miranda. “They will be overjoyed to see you are alive and well. Don’t be afraid.”</p><p>Sheldon nodded. And then the door burst open and two other members of her new family burst through the door.</p><p>Caroline said immediately, “Did you think we would put up with just a snap or two on your phone? Cass drove and we left the car in the staff car-park. Now where’s our latest little sister?”<br/>
And Helena Priestly Sachs, aged fifty-five minutes and twenty-four seconds, sat up to burp and receive visitors.</p><p> </p><p>Miranda and Andrea exchanged a look so deep and so intimate, that Sheldon almost shivered in the intensity of its love and happiness. Whatever happened next, she definitely wanted to be within the sunshine of that smile. And the coming of their new summer baby into the Priestly-Sachs family might be the way to help her find a way back home into her own.</p><p>For the first time in her adult life Sheldon Murphy (etc etc – she knew she would finally have to decide which name to use as her own) felt she could look forward to a happy ending.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the latest of eighteen consecutive Mirandy stories written across three series, the Heatwave, Miranda's Sabbatical, and Making Babies. (Another stand alone story is 'The Touch'<br/>If you would like to read more writing from "Millgirl", I publish to the wider world under the pen-name Maggie McIntyre, and Maggie has her own facebook page . Visit the page and follow me and I'll be honored to keep you in my private group for news of other books and links to new projects.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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